THE 



^5 



PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS, 



AND ITS 



VARIOUS SOLUTIONS; 



OR, 



ATHEISM, DARWINISM, AND THEISM, 






By CLARK BRADEN. 

PRESIDENT OF ABINGDON COLLEGE, ILLINOIS. 






CINCINNATI: 
CHASE & HALL, PUBLISHERS. 

1877. 



.v-^^" 



^^^1 



TYNDALL'S 

STATEMENT OF THE EVOLUTION HYPOTHESIS 



What are the core and essence of the Evolution Hypothesis? 
Strip it naked, and you will stand face to face with the notion that 
not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular and animal life — 
not alone the noble forms of the horse and the lion — not alone 
the wonderful and exquisite mechanism of the human body, but 
the mind itself — emotion, intelligence, and will, were once latent 
in a fiery cloud. At the present moment, all our philosophy, all 
our poetry, all our science, all our art — Plato, Shakespeare, New- 
ton, and Raphael, are potential in the fires of the sun. 

Tyndall. 



COPYRIGHTED BY CLARK BR ADEN, 1876. 



OOI^TEE'TS, 



Chapteb. Paoe. 

Introduction V 

I. Statement of the Problem 13 

II. Data that must be used in Solving the Problem and in testing the Sol- 
ution ■> , 36 

III. Various Solutions of the Problem... 63 

IV. Relations of Religion and Science and Tendencies of the various hy- 

potheses of Evolution 89 

V. Fallacies and Failures of Atheistic and Evolution Hypotheses and 

solutions 112 

VI. The Theistic Solution 226 

SUPPLEMENT. 

VII. Science and the Fundamental Ideas of Religion 342 

VIII. Progress and the Permanence of Religion 370 

APPENDIX. 

Tyndall's Statement of the Evolution Hypothesis 374 

Anthropomorphism of Scientists 374 

Objections to the Nebular Hypothesis... 375 

The Propaganda of Atheistic Scientists 376 

Is the God Idea an Intuition? 379 

Involution before Evolution 379 

Tiiree Ways of getting rid of Intelligence in Evolution 3S0 

Reasons why certain tribes have been called Atheistic 381 

Another Subterfuge of Evolutionists 381 

Matter and Force not Self-existent, but creations of mind 382 

The First Cause not Unknown and Unknowable 388 

Underwood's Reductio ad Absuidum 392 

Is Religion a Perversion of Man's Nature? 396 

Can Physical Science and Evolution give Morality? 398 

Draper's Conflict of Religion and Science 400 

Biblical Contradiction of Science. Mosaic Record of Creation. Noachian 

Deluge. Joshua's Command 402 

Absurdity of Materialism— Anecdote 410 

Mill's Absurd Attempt at Wit 411 

The Man with Two Wives 412 

Mimicry of Nature 413 

Blind, Irrational, Insensate Matter and Force 414 

Parolles and his Drum 416 

Proper Tests of the Two Theories 420 

Evolution Hypotheses and Copernican System , 421 

Another Absurdity in Illustration 422 

Review of Huxley's Demonstration of Evolution 423 

Review of Carpenter's Fallacies of Testimony for the Supernatural 444 

Review of an Atheistic Tract 459 

Materialism and Christianity Contrasted 468 

Conclusion 477 

Gii) 



TO REVIEWERS AND CRITICS. 



The author of this volnme is aware that, writing as he has on 
topics that are, above all others, matters of the sharpest contro- 
versy, his work will be subjected to a searching criticism. To this 
he does not object. Indeed, he invites tlie most sifting examina- 
tion of all he has written. He, however, has two requests to make : 
Tlie first is, that all reviewers and critics carefully read the book 
before they review it. If there is censure or condemnation of what 
is written, let it be only after the critic understands what he con- 
demns, and because he understands it. 

The second request is, that the publishers of all publications, 
noticing and reviewing the book, and all writers reviewing it, send 
one copy of the publication containing such review to the author, 
at Abingdon, Knox County, Illinois. The author is especially 
anxious to receive all publications containing adverse criticisms, 
and replies to positions and statements of the book. It will aid 
him in his own search for the truth. 

Claek Braden. 



IlfTEODUCTIOE", 



Every book has a life and history as real and often as interest- 
ing as that of the author, for generally it is but a transcript of 
the soul-life of the author. The most successful books have been 
those that grew out of and portrayed the life experience and 
struggles of the author. In works of a polemic character, like 
the present volume, the most successful and useful have been 
those in which the author reproduces his own doubts and striv- 
ings for the truth and conflicts with error, and the means by 
which he emerged out of them. The present book has grown out 
of a life's experience. Beginning life in a community saturated 
with Puritanic influences, and reared in the most implicit belief 
of the Scriptures, at the early age of fourteen, the author began 
to have those doubts and questions of head and heart incident to 
thoughtful youth. Through them he passed into a state of skep- 
ticism ; and the flrst notoriety he acquired as a public speaker was 
as lecturer and debater on the skeptical side of the religious 
topics then agitating the minds of the community in which he 
lived. In the good providence of God, at the age of twenty-four, 
he met a preacher, now enjoying the rewards of eternal life, who 
had had a similar experience. By him he was led to a confession 
of Christ, and he began a Christian life. Immediately he was 
called upon to advocate the cause he had now espoused, and 
especially to discuss the views he once defended. He did this in 
sermons and lectures, and especially in public debates with repre- 
sentatives of skepticism in its various forms. With them he has 
held twelve public oral discussions, and one written discussion in 
the columns of a public journal. 

For a number of years, at the request of churches of all de- 
npminations, and of communities, the author has lectured on 
these topics. In numerous papers and magazines he has also 
written largely on them. His personal experience has given him 

(v) 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

special advantages and training for the work he undertakes in 
this vohime. His own skepticism and doubt have given him an 
insight into the springs, motives and reliances of skepticism, that 
can be gained only by personal experience. As a lecturer and 
debater, he has had to meet the best that can be said on the side 
of skepticism, concerning the topics discussed in this volume. He 
lias been continually called on to answer the objections and ques- 
tions of the skeptic, and to solve the troubles of the puzzled 
believer. He has a number of times had his arguments in de- 
fense of what he conceived to be the truth, canvassed by the 
ablest skeptical minds of our country. He has been compelled, 
by the demands of his work, to study for years, all that he could 
collect on these topics, and as only those study who have been 
compelled to make the.se topics a specialty that they may defend 
the truth. For a number of years he has been urged to write out 
and publish his lectures on these topics, and especially the ones 
discussed in this volume. In compliance with the request of 
many of his own and other denominations, he has written this 
book, in the hope that it will aid the cause of truth in the great 
struggle that is now agitating this and other lands. He has been 
impelled to write the book, by a conviction that of all the multi- 
tude of books written not one meets a real want felt by himself 
and others. He has endeavored to give the reader what he has 
collected to meet his own wants. 

In this volume the author endeavors, in the first chapter, to 
give a concise but full view of the nature, extent and demands 
of the problem, for which modern skeptical science attempts to 
furnish a solution, and to give the reader a clear conception of 
what must be accounted for before the problem is solved. This 
has never been done completely and thoroughly, and in a con- 
nected manner. Glimpses of it have been given in detached 
portions in multitudes of books. In reviewing the assertions and 
assumptions of skepticism, writers have occasionally pointed out 
something for Avhich the speculations of the skeptic had no solu- 
tion, but the boundless proportions of the problem have never 
been presented in one connected view. The result has been 
that the readers of the countless productions of modern 
skepticism, having no clear conception of the infinite pro- 
portions of the problem, have readily and easily accepted the 
strange and startling phenomena collected by Darwin and 
others, and the plausible speculations they base on them, as 
a full solution of the infinite problem of the universe. Then the 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

first thing to be done is to place clearly before the reader the 
infinite proportions and demands of the problem, for which the 
speculations of the materialistic scientist are offered as a pre- 
tended solution, that he may clearly apprehend its extent and 
nature, and by a comparison of the speculations of the scientist 
with it, apprehend their flimsiness and meagerness, and appre- 
ciate their utter failure as even a plausible speculation. He will 
see that they have no explanation for the real difficulties of the 
problem, and in fact they leave them utterly untouched. The 
work attempted in the first chapter is a vital and fundamental one. 

In the second chapter the author endeavors to present the 
postulata and data that we have and must use in solving the 
problem, and without which a solution is impossible. The great 
principle of a true inductive philosophy, which the scientist pro- 
fesses to take as his guide, is that we should carefully examine 
the phenomena, being careful to include all of them, and by such 
examination learn their nature and characteristics, and from 
their characteristics determine their cause, using in the solution 
all the phenomena and all the aids we can obtain. While pre- 
tending to take human' nature as his standard in his investiga- 
tions and speculations, and human reason as his means of invest- 
igation, the skeptical scientist ignores the religious and spiritual 
element of our nature, and utterly discards the plainest utter- 
ances and intuitions of the highest — the regnant element of our 
nature. Then, in the second chapter, we insist on a full state- 
ment of all the phenomena, moral, rational, religious, and spirit- 
ual, as well as physical, that we may have all the data and a full 
use of all the elements of our nature. This is especially im- 
portant, since the elements of our nature, ignored by the scientist, 
are the very ones and the only ones that can solve the problem. 
The great questions of causation and creation, intelligent causa- 
tion and creation, can be solved only under the guidance and 
direction of pure reason, and the rational, moral, and religious 
elements of our nature, and chiefly by them. We shall endeavor 
to show that so long as the scientist pursues his present course he 
can only inform us of the manner in which the phenomena trans- 
pire, but is utterly impotent to tell what caused them and Avhy 
they transpire. 

In the third chapter we attempt a brief outline of the various 
solutions of the problem that have been offered for our accept- 
ance. We have been careful to define evolution, development, 
Darwin's hypothesis, and kindred speculations, with especial 



VUl INTKODUCTIOV. 

reference to the technical use that their advocates make of them, ' 
that the reader may ever after be guarded against the common 
blunder of confounding these analogous speculations that are 
used technically in different senses. The reader has before him, 
then, the different solutions, and is prepared to compare them 
with the demands of the problem, and ready to examine them 
and test them by means of the data furnished him by the second 
chapter. In the fourth chapter the natural affinities of evolution, 
development, and Darwinism are exhibited, and their tendencies 
clearly pointed out, that all may understand their real nature. 
In the fifth chapter we have endeavored to classify the objections 
that can be urged against evolution, development, and Darwin- 
ism. These have been gathered from all the different departments 
of investigation, as fully as the authors ability and opportuni- 
ties would permit, and classified so that the reader can see what 
can be said against these arrogant speculations, for which we are 
almost commanded to unship the faith of centuries and castHo 
one side the universal intuitions and the highest aspirations of 
the noblest and regnant element of our nature. We have ar- 
ranged them as they Avould be naturally suggested in tracing the 
course of evolution claimed by the materialist. We could of 
course give only an outline of each objection, but we have en- 
deavored to present the warp of the web of argument so clearly 
that the intelligent reader will be able to supply the woof. 

In the sixth chapter we have attempted a resume of the theistic 
solution, adapted to the present state of the discussion and the 
demands of the thought of the day." Particular attention is paid 
to the objections of Spencer and others of the present time. In 
the seventh chapter we have endeavored to show that modern 
discovery and scientific generalization does not demand or warrant 
a casting to one side of the cardinal ideas of religion; but, on the 
contrary, they only amplify and establish them. 

In the eighth and concluding chapter we endeavor to show that 
progress and discovery can not outgrow a religion of general 
principles and universal and eternally applicable truths. Then 
if we have accomplished our purpose, we shall have led the 
reader through a train of reasoning that will not only show that 
the assaults of modern skeptical science (falsely so called) on our j 
religious nature and faith are baseless, but also show that our ,j 
faith is based on and grounded in the clearest and deepest and 
strongest affirmations of the noblest and the regnant element of 
our nature. The author believes that the course he has pursued 



IKTEODUCTION. IX 

is the only logical, and of course the proper method of conducting 
the examination of this problem of problems and its various solu- 
tions. He has endeavored to avoid technical and scientific terras 
and disquisitions, and if the reader wishes for an elaborate dis- 
cussion of many of the objections urged in the book, against the 
speculations of modern science, he is referred to the works of 
authors who have often devoted a volume to an objection, the 
substance of which is here presented in a few lines. 

We will conclude this introductory chapter by giving a parable 
we often use to illustrate the course of the scientist, and in tliis 
way prepare the reader for the following chapters. An amateur 
in mathematics once submitted to the inspection of his friends 
certain mathematical operations and equations,, in which he 
claimed that he had solved some of the most profound problems 
in several departments of science. As they were quite intricate, 
and displayed great skill in mathematical manipulations, and as 
the conclusions that he claimed he had reached accorded with 
the wishes and views of some of his friends, they eagerly ac- 
cepted and appropriated them, and pressed them into use, and 
extended them far beyond the claims of their author. But as 
these conclusions and the use that was made of them were in 
direct opposition to the most cherished views of all others, they 
subjected them to a most rigid scrutiny. A skillful mathema- 
tician urged the following objections: 

I. In the statement of the problem, and many times in subse- 
quent portions of the work, important elements were omitted 
either through ignorance or were intentionally ignored and 
rejected. 

II. Many and vital points are assumed in the premises on which 
the work is based, for which no proof is offered or attempted, 
and they are the very things that should above all else be proved. 

III. Others are assumed that are susceptible of but little proof, 
scarcely enough to render them probable. 

IV. Others are assum.ed that are worthless because many grave 
and insuperable objections can be urged against them. 

V. Others are assumed that are clearly and palpably untrue. 

VI. In the manipulation of the equations, and in the reasoning 
often the things that stood most in need of proof were assumed, 
and evidently because they were necessary to establish the con- 
clusion. 

VII. Often there was no connection between different parts of 
the work, or between premises and conclusions. 



X INTRODUCTION. 

VIII. Finally, vastly more was clsiimed in the conclusion than 
was included in the premises or reasoning, or established by the 
reasoning, even if these Avere all conceded to be correct. Such 
were the objections of the mathematician. 

A chemist objected that the operator had ignored the teach- 
ings of chemistry in certain parts of his work, and the very 
principles that were needed to enable him to prosecute his 
investigations. Without them, investigation was impossible, 
and unless controlled by them the results must be absurd. An 
adept in natural philosophy objected that certain assump- 
tions in the work and the conclusions contradicted some of 
the most palpable and clearly established facts of natural 
philosophy. A physiologist objected that the mathematician 
had presumed, by his manipulations of mathematical symbols, 
to decide some of the gravest problems in physiology, when 
his work had no connection with these problems. Not only 
this, but while presuming thus to decide what Avas utterly 
foreign to his work, he had deliberately ignored or denied the 
fundamental principles of physiology, and had rejected its funda- 
mental methods, and the only methods by which investigation 
could be conducted in trying to solve these problems. Irritated 
and chagrined by these damaging criticisms of his hobby, and 
these attacks on the bantling of his brain, the author attempted 
to overawe his mathematical critic by an assumption of superior 
mathematical knowledge and by dogmatic assertions. His critic 
coolly replied that be his superior knowledge ever so great it 
could not remove one particle of one of his objections. They 
were unanswered and unanswerable. The author attempted 
to silence the chemist, physicist, and physiologist by quoting to 
them the old adage — Ne sutor ultra crepidam; "Let not the cob- 
bler get above his last." They retorted, "But these things are our 
last, and pre-eminently our last. You are the one that has vio- 
lated his own rule. Do you stick to your last? A mere mathe- 
matician, you have presumed, by your equations, to decide ques- 
tions that are utterly foreign to them, and that can have no 
possible connection with them. You presume to settle the 
gravest questions in our departments, while most presumptuously 
ignoring their plainest facts and fundamental methods and prin- 
ciples." But enamored by a certain mathematical skill displayed 
in the manipulation of the symbols, and inclined by their preju- 
dices to accept the conclusions claimed, because they accorded 
with their preconceived notions, certain parties persisted in laud- 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

ing the work thus criticised as the ne plus ultra of science and 
truth, and claimed that its assumptions and begged conclusions 
were the clearest of truth. In like manner we think it can be 
shown that the speculations known as evolution and Darwinism 
are open to the following objections: 

I. In the first steps in the investigation, and all through the 
investigation, important elements, vital factors, are omitted, 
either through ignorance or they are deliberately ignored and 
rejected. 

II. Many things are assumed in the premises on which they are 
based, of which there is no proof. 

III. Others are assumed that are not susceptible of proof. 

ly. Others are assumed that have hardly enough proof to 
render them even probable. 

V. Others are assumed that are worthless on account of grave 
and often insuperable objections that are urged against them. 

VI. Still others are assumed that are most palpably untrue. 

VII. Often in the course of reasoning, the very things to be 
proved, and that need to be proved above every thing else, are 
quietly assumed. 

VIII. Often the things thus assumed are the things needed to 
establish the conclusion, and are evidently assumed because they 
are thus necessary to the predetermined conclusion. 

IX. Often in the course of reasoning there is no connection 
between different parts of the process, or between the premises 
and conclusion. 

X. Finally, infinitely more is claimed in the conclusion than 
is contained in the premises or the reasoning or proved by the 
speculations, even if all these assumptions and speculations be 
conceded to be entirely true. Such are the objections that can 
be urged to the methods of what now arrogantly appropriates to 
itself the exclusive use of the term science. 

The student of mental philosophy and psychology can object 
that the fundamental methods and principles of mental philos- 
ophy and psychology are utterly ignored — the only principles 
and methods by which certain portions of the investigation can 
be conducted. It is sheer folly to even attempt an investigation, 
except in accordance with these methods. The moralist can 
object that some of the clearest and most palpable truths and 
facts of men till and moral philosophy and phenomena are flatly 
contradictrfl. with an assurance that would be sublime if it were 
not so jibsurd. The psycliologist can urge the same objection. 



XU INTRODUCTION. 

Some of the clearest and most palpable facts and phenomena of 
psychology are flatly denied by these men of science, so called. 
The religionist can object that the scientist presumes to decide 
by his methods and speculations some of the gravest problems in 
morals and religion, when his investigations and methods and 
the facts he reaches by them, have absolutely no connection with 
them ; and he utterly ignores and rejects the plainest truths and 
facts of mental and moral philosophy and religion. The scientist 
ignores and rejects the plainest principles and methods of mental 
and moral philosophy and religion, and denies their clearest and 
plainest facts and phenomena, and rejects the only principles and 
methods by which investigation can be conducted in these depart- 
ments of science, and yet presumes to decide the gravest prob- 
lems in these departments, by his methods and facts, that have no 
more connection with them than the rules of grammar have with 
the manipulation of mathematical equations. If we urge on the 
scientist the consideration of the ten objections we have enumer- 
ated above, and array hundreds of illustrations of them, we are 
met with an assumption of vast superiority in scientific knowl- 
edge. Do n't Darwin and Huxley and Tyndall and Wallace and 
that school of scientists know? What right have religious men 
or priests to question their deductions, no matter how many facts 
can be urged against them ? It matters not how much they may 
know, their knowledge can not set to one side palpable facts. It 
is bootless for the scientist to screajn at the student of mental or 
moral philosophy or religion, "Ne sufor ultra crepidam" for his 
speculations embrace questions that are peculiarly and pre- 
eminently the last of the students of these departments. It is 
the scientist that violates with the coolest effrontery the very 
maxim he so superciliously quotes to others. The careful atten- 
tion and clearest scrutiny of the reader is invited to the follow- 
ing chapters of this book, in which we attempt to establish the 
charges here made against modern skeptical science. 



THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS, 



OR, 



ATHEISM, DARWIJSriSM AND THEISM. 



CHAPTER I. 

Statement of the Problem. 

One of the wise utterances of one whom his cotemporaries 
declared spoke as never man spoke was, that no wise man 
would begin to build a house before he had carefully calcu- 
lated the cost, and no prudent monarch would rush into a war 
before he had carefully calculated and compared his own 
strength and that of his enemy; and no thoughtful person 
will accept a solution of a problem, much less risk priceless 
interests on it, until he carefully weighs the nature and de- 
mands of the problem, and thoughtfully compares the pro- 
posed solution with the nature and demands of the problem, 
for which it claims to account. In the last illustration used 
by the Christ an army might make an imposing display, and 
accomplish much in certain cases, but it would be utterly in- 
adequate to cope with an army twice its own strength. If its 
commander did not understand and appreciate the strength of 
his enemy, he would certainly be undeceived when too late, 
and meet Avith disaster on the field of conflict. In like 
manner, if persons do not understand and appreciate the full 
extent and demands of the problem for which the physicist of 
to-day undertakes to give a solution, they will be apt to be be- 
wildered by the strange and startling phenomena presented by 
the physicist, and the plausible speculations of evolution, de- 

(18) 



14 TPIE PPvOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

velopment, and Darwinism presented by him, and led to ac- 
cept them as a full solution of the infinite problem of the 
universe. Then let us begin by endeavoring to array before 
our minds the phenomena, and endeavor to grasp the infinite 
demands of the problem, for which the advocates of these 
speculations, either directly or by implication, claim they are 
a full solution. 

One obstacle in the way of a proper comprehension of the 
vastness and diflSculty of the problem, is that by constant 
contact with the phenomena of nature, and the familiarity 
arising from such constant contact with its most inscrutable 
processes, we have lost all apprehension and appreciation of 
their vastness, their intricacy, and their wonderful mysteries. 
We have, from the first dawn of observation, witnessed con- 
tinually transpiring before our eyes, almost unheeded, the 
most wonderful and mysterious operations of nature, and have 
never thought perhaps how vast, how wonderful, and how 
mysterious they are. It is only by a careful and thoughtful 
survey of them that our minds can be aroused to apprehend, 
even partipJly, the infinity in number, the vastness in extent, 
and the inscrutable mystery in method, of the processes of 
nature, for which the physicist attempts to account by the- 
ory, speculation, and hypothesis. Let us then marshal before 
us nature in all her various forms, and hold communion with 
her, and endeavor to prepare ourselves for an apprehensicm 
of the problem before us. When we look out on the world 
around us, we see production, reproduction, growth, develop- 
ment, decay, and dissolution ever transpiring in every de- 
partment of nature. As we pass downward in the £icale of 
being, we descend from the wonderful processes of animal and 
vegetable life, through simpler forms, into chemical organiza- 
tion and mere mechanical and mineral arrangement of matter, 
and mere mechanical displays of force, until we are led back 
to the first constitution of things. The physicist assures us 
that all that we now see is the result of evolution, develop- 
ment, and progression. If so, it must have had a beginning. 
Let us then, as far as we can, divest ourselves of our con- 
ceptions of the universe as we now see it in its order and 



I 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 15 

• 

liarmony of arrangement and organization, and endeavor to 
form some conception of the beginning, the first constitution 
of such a course of evolution and progression. When we 
have placed ourselves at this stand-point, let us trace the 
course of development claimed by the physicist, and en- 
deavor to apprehend, as far as possible, all the details of the 
problem — all that has to be accounted for before the problem 
is solved. 

At the very outset, before we can begin our investigation, 
or form a conception of the beginning of this course of evo- 
lution, we encounter this question of questions: What is the 
origin, the beginning of all things ? It is a favorite maxim 
of the physicist, Ex nihilo nihil fit — "Out of nothing nothing 
comes," hence something must have existed forever, and been 
self-existent, independent, and self-sustaining. This axiom 
of the physicist we will implicitly accept. Then there are 
open to us but two alternatives. Either blind, irrational, in- 
sen.-=ate matter, and blind, irrational physical force, are 
eternal, self-existent, independent, and self-sustaining; or ra- 
tional force, mind or spirit is eternal, self- existent, independ- 
ent, and self-sustaining. The physicist takes the former al- 
ternative. He has mere chaos without law, order, property, 
constitution, co-ordination, adjustment, adaptation, or plan. 
We have an universe pervaded by chaotic matter and chaotic 
force. Whether this force would be attractive or repellant, 
latent or active, constructive or destructive, we know not. 
Again we have a grave problem in forming our first concep- 
tion of this force. Is physical force self-active? Is there 
self-activity or spontaneity in physical force ? We recognize 
spontaneity only in mind force. Again, as we look on matter, 
we recognize in it certain essential properties^ so essential 
tliat we can not conceive of its existence without them. They 
are extension, form, density, impenetrability, rarity, mallea- 
bility, ductility, elasticity, porosity, and inertia. If we 
place ourselves back of the first constitution of things, we 
can not conceive of matter as existing without them. Then 
we have to make these properties eternal, if we make matter 
eternal. If these properties, the primordial factors of the 



16 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

progression that the pliysicist claims, be eternal, then the 
j^rogression that he claims they produce must be eternal. If 
eternal, it must become perfect in an eternity. But it is not 
perfect, hence it had a beginning, and the matter of which 
these properties are the essential properties, is not eternal, 
and had a beginning. But even if we concede the eter- 
nity of matter and these properties, we have but a turbulent 
chaos, a fortuitous clashing together of atoms, without order, 
system, or law. Then we can not conceive of the existence 
of matter without these essential forces — attraction, repul- 
sion, adhesion, cohesion, heat, electricity, chemical action, and 
affinity, and crystallization. If we place ourselves back of 
the first constitution of matter, we can not conceive of it as 
existing without these forces. It matters not whether we re- 
gard these forces as different forces, or as different manifesta- 
tions of one force, we can not conceive of matter as existing 
without them. 

Even if we should attempt to hold in conception that non- 
descript, unthinkable something-nothing, matter without prop- 
erties or force, as existing from eternity, we have only in- 
creased the difficulty. If " out of nothing, nothing comes," 
whence came these properties and these forces Avhen . they 
came into being? If latent in matter until progression began, 
whence came the impulse that commenced their activit}^? 
Here is another grave objection. If these properties were 
latent or inactive, then there is no spontaneity or self-activity 
in them. There is no inherent self-evolving activity in them, 
as the physicist claims. Then matter and force must have 
had a beginning. If not, how did they exist for an eternity 
without acting on each other ^ If they acted on each other 
in a progression during an eternity, they would have resulted 
in a perfect system. Then the eternity of matter and phys- 
ical force, necessary as a basis for the progression claimed by 
the physicist, is an impossibility. Next we find in matter over 
sixty elementary substances, known as the original element 
of matter. Whence came they? Were they eternal, or was 
homogeneous matter at some time charged into them? Whence 
came their number and their proportion to each other? 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 17 

Then we have to account for the co-ordination, adjustment, 
and adaptation of these elementary substances and the 
forces we see in matter, and the essential properties of matter 
to each other. There has to be co ordination, adaptation, 
and adjustment of all these to each other, and laws as to 
when they shall act, where they shall act, how they shall act, 
how long and how often they shall act, and in what order and 
in what succession they shall act. We know all this is ad- 
justed in exact mathematical proportion, and in accordance 
with exact mathematical law. After all this assumption, and 
after we have passed over all these difficulties, we have only 
mineral and mechanical combination, such as would produce 
homogeneous masses, or mere mechanical mixtures. 

As we proceed upward from this w^e encounter chemical 
action, chemical affinity, and chemical compounds arising 
from them. We meet with such questions as these : Were all 
these sixty elementary substances once in a chaotic mechanic- 
ally mixed mass or masses? Or were they once, separate in 
homogeneous masses mechanically held together? If in the 
latter condition, how were th-ey ever separated and chemically 
combined as they now are? If in the former condition, how 
came they to be combined as we^find them now? Hydrogen 
has a greater affinity for chlorine than for oxygen. Yet we 
find chlorine is united with sodium, for which it has a less 
affinity than for hydrogen, and hydrogen is united with oxy- 
gen in water. Nitrogen has a far greater affinity for chlorine 
than for oxygen, yet we find nitrogen united with oxygen in 
the atmosphere, united mechanically, and chlorine with sod- 
ium. How came chlorine to gelect sodium with which it 
makes a useful compound, and nitrogen and hydrogen to se- 
lect oxygen with which they make useful compounds, and 
chlorine to reject nitrogen and hydrogen with which it makes 
destructive compounds ? Igneous rock composes the mass of 
what we know of the earth. Feldspar forms the principal 
element of igneous rock. It is composed of six elements. 
How came they to leave all the rest of the sixty elements, 
and unite in feldspar? No chemist, with the substances sepa- 
rate, can unite them and produce feldspar. Mica, another 
2 



18 THE PROBLEM OF PHOBLEMS. 

prominent element in igneous rock, has the six elements of 
feldspar, and four others. . So has honieblende, another prom- 
inent element in igneous rock. No chemist, with the ele- 
ments perfect and free, can . produce these substances. Nor 
can he if he separate them from other substances in which 
they may be found. If they were once mechanically mixed 
in a chaotic mass, how came they to separate and unite in 
these substances? 

Then whence came the principles and laws of chemical 
affinity ? Some of these elementary substances will select some 
of the other elementary substances, and reject others. Again, 
they will unite in different proportions, and make different 
compounds. They will unite with two or three others, when 
they will not unite singly. Compounds will unite with other 
compounds, or with certain elements of other compounds, and 
form entirely different substances. Whence came this won- 
derful operation of chemical affinity? Then there are laws 
for the change of forms and characteristics by heat and 
chemical action. In all this, there is exact mathematical pro- 
portion and law. Simple substances will unite only in defi- 
nite proportions. Different proportions give entirely different 
substances. Compound substances unite with certain simple 
substances, or with other compound substances, or with cer- 
tain elements in them, in definite mathematical proportion. 
In this way, out of sixty elementary substances, are produced 
the almost infinite variety of compounds, differing from each 
other in an almost infinite number of particulars. Now the- 
question arises, Was all this co-ordination, adjustment, adapta- 
tion and plan the result of the aimless, purposeless fiction of 
blind, irrational physical force on blind, irrational, insensate 
matter? Do we find in such a basis sufficient ground for all 
this? There are realized in this adjustment and adaptation 
and co-ordination in chemical action, some of the highest con- 
ceptions of mathematical law and proportion, and some of 
the highest ideas of pure reason. Has this a sufficient basis 
and ground in mere matter and physical force? 

Then in the wonderful and beautiful process of crystalli- 
zation, observed in all chemical action of solids, and most 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 19 

liquids, there is seen exact mathematical proportion and geo- 
metrical forms. Geometry, the most abstract and purely 
mental of all departments of science, the product of pure 
reason, has furnished us certain beautiful forms, and the laws 
of faces and angles. The geometrical department of the 
fine arts is one of the most purely ideal of all departments 
of science; yet in crystallization, Ave find all these ideas, laws 
and principles realized, as they never are in the utmost ef- 
forts of man. In so common a substance as the snow, and 
m so simple a formation as the snow-flake, there are to be 
seen sixty-four of the most beautiful combinations of geomet- 
rical forms, in crystals. In so simple, and so apparently 
crude a substance, as a mass of granite, we find three unique 
crystals, universally side by side, and symmetrically arranged. 
Are these highest conceptions of pure reason, thus so uni- 
versally and so wonderfully realized in crystallization, through 
all nature, the product of blind, irrational physical force, op- 
erating on blind, irrational, insensate matter? And yet we 
are only on the threshold of our subject. If we look out on 
the universe, we see matter arranged in vast bodies — suns 
and planets — with exact geometrical forms, moving in orbits 
with exact geometrical forms. The masses of these bodies 
bear exact mathematical relation to each other, in each sys- 
tem. So also do their distances from each other, and their 
velocities in their orbits. So also these masses and distances 
and velocities have mutual mathematical relation. They are 
arranged in systems in accordance with these laws. Second- 
ary planets revolve around the primary in accordance with 
mathematical law, and the primaries with the secondaries 
around the central sun; and the sun, with all his attendant 
orbs around him, sweeps majestically in an orbit of incon- 
ceivable magnitude and in an inconceivable period of time, 
around another center, and this relatively infinite system 
around another center, until the mind is lost in the concep- 
tion! Our problem demands an adequate solution for the 
realization of these vast conceptions of pure reason in the 
constitution of the universe. These mathematical and geo- 
metrical ideas are the highest conceptions, the most abstract 



20 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

and ideal conceptions of pure reason. Is this complete real- 
ization of thera, in the infinite universe, the result of blind, 
irrational physical force operating on blind, insensate matter? 
Gravitation, and all displays of force, operate throughout this 
boundless universe, co-ordinated, adjusted and adapted in ac- 
cordance with exact mathematical laws, as to when, where, 
how long, and how often, and in what order and succession, 
and in what manner they act. Can the realization of these 
highest conceptions of pure reason, throughout the vast uni- 
verse, be the result of blind matter and force? The vastness' 
and the tremendous power of what we have been considering 
should impress all minds who investigate the problem, but 
there is still left that which is more intricate and mysterious, 
and that which requires even more effort of mind to investi- 
gate it, even if it be not so overpoweringly vast and sublime. 
We have so far had only mineral organization and chemical 
compounds. The most mysterious and inexplicable elements 
of the problem have not, as yet, been even suggested. In 
the vegetable, we have organization, growth and reproduc- 
tion, and something that originates, determines and controls 
this organization, growth and reproduction, and in accord- 
ance with a rational plan and system. Or, at least, all this 
phenomena can be interpreted and arranged in accordance 
with a rational system, or our science of botany would be an 
utter impossibility. That which originates, controls and de- 
termines, w^e call vegetable life, or vital force exhibited in 
vegetable life. Now, whence came it? It is not the force or 
one of the forces seen in chemical action or in inorganic na- 
ture, for they are destructive of this force seen in vegetable 
life. About sixteen of the sixty simple elements enter into, 
the composition of plants. How came they to separate from 
the rest of the sixty, if once united with them in a chaotic 
mechanical mixture, and unite in vegetable forms? How 
came they to do this, when some of them have greater afiin- 
ity for other elements than for any found in the vegetable 
compound ? The chemist may take these elements and unite 
them with all his skill, and he can not produce the simplest 
vegetable organism, or a symptom of vegetable life. On the 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 21 

contrary, the action of mere physical forces, or chemical 
action, on these vegetable organisms, is to destroy them, and 
to decompose them. As soon as vegetable life leaves the 
plant, the operation of other forces destroys its organization 
and decomposes it. There is in the plant that which resists, 
which overcomes these destructive tendencies, and co-ordinates 
them with the growth of the plant, controls them, and makes 
them subordinate to that end. Whence comes this wonderful 
vital force, this wonderful principle or power of vegetable 
life? Did blind, irrational physical force evolve it out of 
blind, insensate matter, destitute of all such existence ? Did 
matter and force, destitute of all vegetable life, evolve what 
is not in them, and what they destroy? Did blind, insensate 
matter, so modify blind, irrational physical force, both being 
destitute of vital force, as to change it into vital force? How 
could it, when they are not only destitute of vital force, but 
destructive of it? Did it exist forever latent and jiascent in 
matter, or is it created by evolution? If it was forever latent 
in matter and force, how was it developed? "What impulse 
started the evolution? How could it exist latent in that 
which is destructive of it, or be created by evolution out of 
what is destructive of it? And, above all, what is meant 
by this evolution that so wonderfully creates or develops this 
wonderful vital force ? Is it not made a god by such an as- 
sumption ? 

All human experience declares that all vegetable organiza- 
tion and growth is from a vegetable cell or germ. No seed 
no plants, says all human experience. Then whence came the 
first seed or germ? How did the sixteen elements that are 
found in vegetables separate from the rest of the sixty, out of 
a chaotic mechanical mixture of these elements, or out of 
chemical compounds and unite in the vegetable gperm, especi- 
ally when they have a greater affinity for other elements than 
for any in the germ ? Then how came they to take the exact 
proportions that are found in vegetable germs ? No chemistry 
or manipulation by science can produce the combination from 
the elements, or the cellular organization or structure of the 
vegetable cell or germ. Nor, above all, can chemistry originate 



22 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

or evolve tlie life principle seen in the vegetable germ or 
growth. If it is the life principle that produces the cellular 
structure and growth, they can not produce or create that. If 
form and cellular structure produce vital force, they can not 
produce such form and structure. The problem then is. Whence 
the vital force or whence the cellular structure ? or, perhaps 
more accurately, whence came both ? 

All vegetable matter is made up of cells. Whence the first 
cell ? The germ is made up of cells. Was this germ in form 
and cellular structure evolved out of matter, destitute of either 
by blind force ; destitute of and destructive of the force mani- 
fested in them and of such cellular structure or germ? But 
when we have the germ, whence came the wonderful co-ordi- 
nation of matter and its properties and physical forces below 
vital force, to the growth and development of the germ ? How 
came the force in the germ to control and co-ordinate matter 
and force destructive of the germ and its gro^vth and antagon- 
istic to vital force, and subordinate them to this growth and 
development? Then whence came the types and varieties of 
vegetable growth ; the almost infinite varieties of form, repro- 
duction and products ? Whence came these results of these 
processes of reproduction and growth? Whence the almost 
infinite variety of co-ordination, adaptation and adjustments to 
the surroundings and to eacli other? It is thought that there 
are over three hundred thousand varieties differing from each 
-other in almost every one of these particulars, in almost infi- 
nite diversity. Whence came they all, and their still more 
wonderful co-ordination and adaptation and adjustment to sur- 
roundings and to each other, and the co-ordination of surround- 
ing nature to them ? Let us take a single illustration. Cer- 
tain plants, orchids of certain species, are fertilized only by 
certain insects. Certain insects, moths, perform for these 
plants this process necessary to reproduction. In the plant 
there are, Darwin says, traps, gins, pitfalls and spring guns, 
and snares, to allure the moth and compel it to do this work 
of carrying the pollen from one sex of the plant to the other. 
Whence came this co-ordination, contrivance and wonderful 
design? This is but a single specimen. Thousands, yea mil- 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 23 

lions of such illustrations could be cited. Our problem de- 
mands Whence came all this? Is all this the product of blind, 
irrational matter, and blind, irrational physical force? Can 
these results, which require the highest efforts of master minds 
to apprehend them and construe them — these results so con- 
current with and analogous to the highest conceptions of rea- 
son, be the result of mere blind irrational matter and force ? 

But there is a still more profound mystery. An infinitely 
higher step, has to be taken. So far, we have but mechanical 
arrangement of matter, chemical action and vegetable life. 
Above and distinct from these, we encounter animal life, or a 
life force capable of instinct, sensation, locomotion, and volun- 
tary motion, and, "to a limited extent, understanding. Whence 
came this wonderful faculty or power sensation ? Was it eter- 
nally latent in matter ? If it was, how was it developed? Can 
we say that chaotic matter, mechanical and mineral aggre- 
gations of matter, chemical compounds, .or even vegetable com- 
binations, have latent in them this w^onderful property of sen- 
sation ? It is the very caricature of all reason to say so. If 
not latent in them, whence came it? If not in them, it could 
not be evolved out of them. If not evolved, did blind in- 
sensate matter, and blind irrational force create what \vas 
not in them, and that of which they are destructive? No 
chemistry can detect or evolve this wonderful principle of ani- 
mal life. No manipulation of matter and force can produce 
it. There are about sixteen substances that enter into animal 
organisms. How came they to separate from the rest of the 
sixty in mechanical mixtures or chemical compounds, and unite 
in the animal organization, especially since they have in many 
cases greater affinity with other substances not in the animal 
organization, than for any in it ? How came sixteen to unite 
in vegetable organizations and sixteen in animal organizations? 
The chemist, with all his intelligence and skill, may unite these 
elements, and he can not produce one vegetable or animal cell or 
structure, or one symptom of vegetable or animal life. Vege- 
table life or organizations can not produce animal organization 
or life, nor be transmuted into them. Vegetable substances 
can be appropriated by animal organization and digested and 



24 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

assimilated, but animal life or organization can not be evolved 
out of vegetables, nor can vegetables be transmuted into ani- 
mals, or made to take on or display one particle of animal life 
or structure. 

All animal life is from an egg or germ. Whence came the 
egg? Experience declares it came from an organization pre- 
cisely such as afterwards is evolved out of the germ. How 
came the sixteen elements in the animal to unite in the germ ? 
Then each germ and all animal matter is made up of cells. 
Whence came the cells ? Chemistry, with all its accumulations 
of the efforts of the intelligence of thousands of years, can not, 
with these elements, produce one cell, nor the germ in which 
the cellular structure appears. Dr. Bastlan, with his experi- 
ments wdth the microscope, has demonstrated that vegetable 
and animal cells are radically different in structure, thus plac- 
ing an impassable chasm between vegetable and animal life 
or organization, showing that one can not be evolved out of 
the other. Also, what will develop one of these cells, the 
means necessary to the development and growth of one will 
destroy the other, thus showing the utter impossibility of de- 
veloping one into the other. Then whence came the aggrega- 
tion of these cells into the ovum? AVhence came the first 
ovum ? Then the wonderful growth, development, sustenance, 
and forms and processes of the animal frame. How are they 
evolved out of the gelatinous globule, the germ. Sensation, res- 
piration, inspiration, secretion, excretion, absorption, digestion, 
circulation, and reproduction of the animai organism — whence 
came they ? Then whence came all the families, species and 
varieties of animals, differing so wonderfully in form, means 
of life, growth, sustenance, reproduction, and every process of 
the animal organization? Whence came the adjustment of 
vegetable and animal life to each other, and the adjustment, 
adaptation, and co-ordination of each animal to physical nature 
and forces, and to vegetable life and surroundings? Are all 
these things that are co-ordinated and construed only by 
the highest effort of reason, and can be expressed properly 
only v.'hen co-ordinated by the highest conceptions of reason, 
and which show perfectly realized the highest ideas and con- 



i 



STATEMENT OF THE PPvOBLEM. 25 

ceptions of reason, the result of the aimless, purposeless ongo- 
ings of blind, irrational force and blind, insensate matter? 

Then that wonderful attribute of animal life, known as 
instinct, which so often displays memory, reflection, compari- 
son and understanding, almost rivaling human reason, whence 
came it? Was it eternally latent in physical force and 
matter? Can we believe that chaotic matteu, mineral or 
mechanical aggregations of matter, or chemical compounds, 
or even vegetable life, ever contained, or now contain, the 
wonderful instinct of the dog or horse? If latent in them, 
what developed it? If not latent, how could it be evolved 
out of them, out of what did not contain it? The displays 
of instinct are so often manifestations of calculations for, 
prevision of, and provision for results, not capable of being 
conceived of and being held in mere instinct. The cuckoo 
lays eggs in other birds' nests, and makes them rear her 
young. The bee builds a cell which displays perfect archi- 
tectural skill and geometrical knowledge in economy of space 
and securing strength. The intelligence is not in the bee. 
Is it not back of the bee, implanting the instinct as an im- 
pulse working out so wonderful an intellectual result ? Cer- 
tain ants make workers and slaves of others. The working 
bee kills the drones. The queen bee kills her daughters. 
Whence come these wonderful instincts which secure results 
and display conceptions of reason far above the instinct of 
the animal ? Did blind, irrational force evolve the instinct 
that secures these intellectual conceptions so far above itself? 

To state the problem in full, we would have to insert all 
we know of astronomy, chemistry, mechanics, botany, zool- 
ogy, and all the sciences, and in each department of them, and 
we have as yet but a glimpse of the infinity of nature. Take 
a single vegetable, and learn all that can be learned of its 
growth, sustenance, organization, processes, and reproduction. 
Then think of the hundreds of thousands of varieties of veg- 
etables, differing from each other in nearly all these particu- 
lars. Then take an animal organization, man's physical 
organization, for instance. Study the Avonderful processes of 
production, growth, sustenance, and reproduction of the phys- 
3 



26 THE PKOBLKM OF PROBLEMS. 

ical man. Learn all you can of the wonders of circulation, 
secretion, excretion, respiration, absorption, digestion, and 
reproduction of the physical man. Take the wonderful and 
mysterious process of reproduction that man has been study- 
ing for thousands of years. Read the countless volumes that 
have been written on this one process, and the innumerable 
wonders revealed in them, and reflect that they touch but 
the outskirts of the subject, and that the real, the essential, 
is still shrouded in profound mystery. Trace this amazing 
process through all its wonderful and beautiful manifesta- 
tions, and reflect that this is but a glimpse of one of the pro- 
cesses of our physical frame. Multiply all this by the num- 
ber of processes, and then grasp, if you can, the infinite, the 
unfathomable adaptations, adjustments and design seen in 
man's organization alone. Then reflect that there are hun- 
dreds of thousands of animal organizations, differing from 
each other in nearly all of these particulars in a most wonder- 
ful manner. Then reflect on the adaptation, adjustment and 
co-ordination of these almost countless varieties of animals 
and plants to each other and to surroundings, and you begin 
to apprehend — and you can only apprehend — a glimpse — and 
it is only a glimpse — of the demands of the problem. Then 
take the adaptation of organs and functions to ends. Take 
the hand of man, with its four hundred thousand adaptations, 
as exhibited in the large volume of one of our greatest anato- 
mists. Reflect that it is but one organ of a multitude in the 
human frame. Then take all the organs of the human frame. 
Then all the organs and functions of all animals, differing so 
widely from each other. Then take the adaptation of analogous 
organs and functions to widely different circumstances and uses, 
as the hand of man, the wing of a bird, the paddle of a whale, 
and the flipper of a mole. Take also the accomplishment of 
the same ends or purposes by so widely different organs and 
functions in countless other cases. When you have all these 
before you, then ask whence came all this? Are these results 
that can only be apprehended by the highest efforts of our 
mind, and can be construed only by the highest conceptions 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 27 

of our reason, the result, the aimless, purposeless working, of 
blind, irrational force and blind, insensate matter? 

Geology tells us that there have been ages or epochs in the 
earth's history, during which no life or types of life existed. 
Then, as the earth became fitted for them, lower forms of life 
appeared. As the earth became unfitted for these, and fitted 
for higher types of life, the lower degenerated and dis- 
appeared, and higher types took their places. It teaches, 
however, that each species appeared and existed in its great- 
est perfection when we first meet with it. It teaches also 
that very highly organized types of life, wonderful organiza- 
tions suddenly appeared without any typical progenitors. It 
teaches that, so far from a change of conditions developing 
any species into another, the change of conditions caused each 
species to degenerate until it became extinct, and they were 
succeeded by higher and radically distinct types, in their 
highest perfection at the commencement of their history. Our 
problem demands. Whence came these types that thus sud- 
denly appear in their greatest perfection at first ? Especially, 
whence came these wonderful and highly organized forms 
of life that suddenly appeared without any typical progeni- 
tors ? If we concede a course of evolution, a process of 
development, it does not solve the problem. Indeed, we are 
just as far from the solution as we were before the hypothesis. 
Tt merely tells us how the phenomena have been produced, 
hi what manner they have occurred; but it does not give 
the slightest hint as to the cause of the phenomena. The 
questions stand just as they did before the hypothesis. Whence 
came matter and force ? Whence came the essential proper- 
ties of matter, and the essential forces of matter, or the 
essential manifestations of force in matter? Whence came 
the co-ordination, adjustment and adaptations of these proper- 
ties and forces? Whence came the adjustments and adapta- 
tions seen in the heavenly bodies and systems? Whence 
came vegetable cells, germs, forms, life, growth, and repro- 
duction? How came these elements to be organized into a 
seed or germ? Then, whence came the growth and wonderful 
reproduction, the species and varieties? All animal life is 



28 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

from an egg or germ. Whence came animal cells and tlieir 
organization into the germ ? Nature does not produce the 
germ now, except through a pre-existent organization, such 
as is developed out of the germ. Did she ever do so? If 
so, what proof have we of it ? .11 ow does any one know or 
prove it ? How could she do it ? How could it produce 
out of lower forms of existence that which they destroy ? 

If all life was in a primordial germ, then all possibilities of 
life were there, or whence came these varieties of existence? 
Whence came the differentiation, selection, and difference of 
development ? If conditions make the difference, then each 
cell must have contained in itself all conditions or adaptation 
to all conditions. If different conditions existed in different 
cells, or different conditions existed around different cells, 
and adaptability to all conditions in each cell, whence came 
they? If different life and different conditions existed in dif- 
ferent cells, or different conditions surrounded different cells 
containing different life, whence came they, and the concur- 
rence of suitable conditions with appropriate life ? If the 
same life and conditions existed in each cell, or the same life 
existed in each cell, and different conditions surrounded dif- 
ferent cells, where came the difference in development, or 
the wonderful adai:)tation of this one life to different condi- 
tions ? All life and all conditions, then, must exist in each cell, 
or all life and power of adaptation to all conditions must be 
in each cell. We, then, make a fetich, a god of this gela- 
tinous globule, the germ or the cells of which it is composed. 
Not only this, but we have to suppose a wonderful co-ordina- 
tion of conditions and adaptation in the same place and at the 
same time, so as to evolve out of what has no sex two be- 
ings of opposite sexes. Then all along the course of devel- 
opment we have to suj)pose the evolution, at the same time 
and place, of two beings of opposite sexes, each having the 
same improvement, out of what did not possess it, and that 
their offspring associate sexually only with each other. All 
along the chain of evolution, in almost innujnerable cases, we 
have to assume that existences produce other existences tlmt 
contain what they did not contain. 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 29 

In this manner, we have to interpolate in our series of ma- 
terial forces and matter, their adjustment, chemical action, 
crystallization, vegetable cells, germs, life, growth, reproduc 
tion, varieties, and species, animal cells, germs, life, growth, 
reproduction, sensation, instinct, and species and varieties. 
New agencies are continually appearing out of what does not 
even suggest them, and out of what it is a mockery of reason' 
to assume contains them, order, affinity, life, plants, sensation, 
and instinct. Then we see incipient organs that are a burden 
in certain species for a long time, become after a time highly 
useful in higher species. Silent members, that after awhile 
become completed, and become highly useful, are met with in 
this coarse of development as an inexplicable 2)roblem. 
Then there appear all along the course of development won- 
derful adaptations to emergencies of heat, cold, water and 
drouth, and other surroundings, as seen in the stomach of the 
camel, the water receptacle of plants, etc. Also, wonderful 
adjustments of organs and functions to ends, as seen in the 
neck of the giraife, the proboscis of the elephant, and the 
electric organs of fishes, the illuminating organs of insects, 
and the mammary glands of mammalia. We see the laws 
of nature overcome in nature by the application of other 
forces by means of mechanical contrivances just as in man's 
labors and arts. The tubular bridge has the greatest strength 
of material compatible with the greatest lightness of struct- 
ure that can be secured. The frames of birds are constructed 
on the same principle. The wing of a bird is a wonderful 
machine for overcoming gravity and securing motion through 
the air of a body far heavier than the element on which it 
floats, or through which it so easily moves. It took man 
thousands of years of hard study to attain to a knowledge of 
electricity and the battery. In the electric organs of certain 
fishes, we find displayed a perfect knowledge of battery, coil, 
pile, and medium through which electricity will act on the or- 
ganization of other animals. 

There is another department of nature, another class of 
ideas, of the highest and most purely ideal character real- 
ized in nature. They are the conceptions or controlling ideas 



30 TPIE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS 

of order, beauty, harmony, and sublimity. In crystalliza- 
tion, as we have said, we have wonderful displays of order, 
symmetry, and beauty. In vegetable life and forms, these 
ideas have been controlling ideas in nearly every variety of 
existence. In a large portion of vegetable nature, beauty 
seems to have been the sole idea. Such is the case with the 
almost countless varieties of flowers, leaves and forms of 
vegetable life with which nature is rendered so resplendently 
beautiful. A vast majority of plants seem to have been 
varied from others merely to express different forms and 
ideas of beauty. The same holds true of animal forms and 
colors. Think of the almost infinite varieties of cqlors and 
blendings of hues to express beauty in animals and plants, 
and in the clouds, and even mineral products of nature. Of 
the humming-bird alone there are over two hundred varieties, 
all expressing peculiar, unique, and surpassing forms of 
beauty. Of the rose, there are over six thousand varieties, 
expressing different ideas and conceptions of beauty. Then, 
also, the realization of the purest and highest conceptions of 
beauty, harmony, and sublimity, seen in all nature, is to be 
accounted for in the solution of our problem. Did blind, ir- 
rational force and blind, insensate matter, in their aimless, 
purposeless ongoings, evolve these highest conceptions and 
ideals of pure reason? What have they to do with the 
beautiful, the sublime, the ideal. 

Tliere has been also correlation of growth. Change in any 
organ or function of any animal is correlated by change in 
other organs so as to secure symmetry in the animal, and 
adaptation of all organs to each other. Symmetry of sides 
is secured, and there is also a correlation of surrounding 
nature to such growth and development of animals and 
plants, and also of animals and plants to each other, and 
groAvth and development in each other. There has been an 
order of creation — in time, in method, in system, in develop- 
ment. This has existed in all epochs of the world's history. 
By a comparison of fossil types of life, and those now exist- 
ing, man has reached the idea that there has been developed 
in creation controlling ideas, and these controlling ideas have 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 31 

been ideal concepts, archetypal forms, with variations from 
them. These ideas, the highest conceptions and achieve- 
ments of zoological science, and by which its classifications 
are made, and without which it could not be a science, are 
realized in nature in this course of development. Is this 
realization of the highest conceptions of reason, in the course 
of development, observed in nature, and the results in which 
they are realized, the product of blind, irrational force and 
blind, insensate matter? 

Perhaps the reader is already bewildered, and almost over- 
powered with the vastness and mystery of the problem, and 
yet we have not reached the most wonderful and incompre- 
hensible part. We have in man rational life, a life princi- 
ple capable of reason and moral action. In man we have 
spontaneity, spontaneous volition, and action, power to arouse 
the mind to act, power of memory, reflection, and abstrac- 
tion. We can think of our thoughts and reason concern- 
ing our reasonings. Whence come this wonderful power ? 
Whence came self-consciousness and thoughts of infinity, cau- 
sation, and right and wrong, and moral desert? Whence 
came rational ideas of space, time, causation, and infinity, 
and abstract ideas of numbers and forms, as in arithmetic 
and geometry, and the wonderful development of mathemat- 
ics as seen in its higher and abstract departments ? Whence 
came the artistic capacity and feeling in music, painting, and 
sculpture ? The master])ieces of painting and sculpture, 
whence came the power that produced them? The produc- 
tions of Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Handel and 
Haydn ? The masterpieces of architecture ? Whence came 
they all? Whence came instrumental and vocal music? 
Whence came the power of the human voice in speech and 
singing? A Solon, a Solomon, a Daniel, a Plato, a Milton, a 
Shakespeare, a Bacon, or a Newton, with all their wonderful 
powers of mind and soul, whence came they ? Study their 
works. Reflect on the vast knowledge, the profound thought, 
the almost divine power of reason, the marvelous power of 
descriptive eloquence and imagination exhibited in them. 
C.ontemplate the amazing display of rational and moral force 



32 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

seen in such lives! Weigh well the aspirations, doubts, 
hopes, speculations, reasonings, and discoveries of such a 
soul ! Consider well its amazing powers of apprehension, 
reason, comprehension, sorrow, joy, and despair! Think of 
its incalculable obligations and responsibilities of good and 
evil! Then ask, whence came all this wonderful power, this 
wonderful form of life so divine ? 

Look out on man's history as a race — his achievements in 
science and art. Survey his cities, his temples, his buildings 
and structures of all kinds ; his empires and civilizations ; 
his discoveries. Survey his inventions in the arts. Peruse 
his masterpieces in the field of thought. Consider his 
achievements in moral life as seen in a Confucius, a Gau- 
tema, a Zoroaster, an Abraham, a Moses, a Socrates, a Paul, 
a Howard or a Washington, a Luther or a Wesley. Then 
ask, Whence came these wonderful minds, these godlike souls ? 
Their achievements are the work of what ? Of blind, irra- 
tional physical force, so modified by the organization of 
blind, insensate matter as to be capable of such divine re- 
sults ? Believe it who can I Is it not the very travesty of 
reason, the very mockery of common sense, to suggest such 
a thought? If it be claimed that it is the same force seen 
in insensate matter, modified by that organization of matter 
known as our bodies, where comes that wonderful organiza- 
tion of matter that produces so stupendous a result? Could 
matter develop itself into such an organization ? Could such 
an organization be the result of the action and interaction 
of blind, irrational matter and force on each other? Is the 
mind nascent or latent in minerals and earths waiting for de- 
velopment? If not, whence does it come when it first ap- 
pears ? Whence came the organization and means of develop- 
ing it? Then who, for one moment, can believe that the 
achievements and mental and moral actions of a Socrates, a 
Solomon, or a Paul, are the result of the same force as burns 
in the brand or whirls the dust? If it is merely the same 
force seen in insensate matter, modified by the organization 
of matter, how comes this force to be so wonderfully modi- 
fied ? Could this wonderful development of the force seen in 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 33 

matter that is displayed in mind and reason, and tliat won- 
derful organization, our bodies, have resulted from the action, 
reaction, and interaction of blind irrational matter and force ? 
Could such development of matter and force have originated 
in any other way than in the origination, control, and direc- 
tion of a pre-existing mind acting on a plan with this wonder- 
ful development before it as an end ? When we ask the 
physicist whence came this wonderful modification of force, he 
replies that it is occasioned by that wonderful organization 
of matter, the body. When we ask, whence came such a 
wonderful organization of matter, he replies, it is the result of 
the action on matter of that marvelous force, the mind. 
Thus he makes both matter and force cause and effect, and 
reasons in a circle. Not only so, but he has to assign to force 
intelligence, to secure such results, or he makes matter and 
force evolve what is not in them, and violates every principle 
of reason by making the effect infinitely greater, and entirely 
different from the cause. 

We have, then, either to assume the eternity of mind latent 
and nascent in matter, or make matter and force evolve what 
is not in them. Not only so, but how could there, in either 
case, be this wonderful development, without mind back of it, 
to originate it, and adjust matter and force, and to control the 
course of development ? Such are some of the demands of the 
problem for which the physicist offers his speculations as a so- 
lution. If we concede his theory of development, evolution 
and progress, still the question stands unsolved, Whence came 
the wonderful force that raises the animal or plant from inor- 
ganic matter? Or higher forms from lower? Whence came 
sensation, instinct and reason? Were they in star-dust, cha- 
otic matter, nebulous masses? Or were they added? If you 
say conditions produced them, what is that but a phrase to 
conceal ignorance, for conditions may modify, but they create 
nothing? What power is adequate to all this? What power 
or force do the elements of the problem demand, as an ade- 
quate ground or basis? Whence came the universal, catholic 
ideas of God, and creation and government by him, of moral- 
ity, moral desert, responsibihty, retribution, providence, prayer. 



34 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

revelation, miracle, sacrifice, mediation, atonement, incarna- 
tion, religion and worship? Are they not the answer of reason 
and man's rational religious nature to this question? And 
our problem demands, whence came these ideas? They are 
one of the most difficult features of the problem. Whence 
came these universal ideas, that man alone has, and what 
power evolved them? There is an all-pervading plan or sys- 
tem in nature, including every atom, every organ, every func- 
tion, every plant, every animal, every species, every genus, 
each planet, each system, and finally the Cosmos. Reason 
passes upward through order, life, sensation, instinct, under- 
standing, reason and moral qualities and power, to mind, law, 
right, and holiness. Reason insists on including all these ele- 
ments in the problem, and on using them as the chief means 
of solving it. 

Reason insists on asking these questions and including them 
in the problem. Of what is each existence made ? In what 
manner made? In what form? By what or whom made? 
For what end ? We can not investigate or describe a single 
process in nature, without asking all these questions, and in- 
cluding all these ideas. We use teleological ideas and lan- 
guage in investigating and describing every existence and 
process in nature. We use terms implying the existence and 
action of mind. The physicist does this himself, even when 
arguing against them. Such are the characteristics of the 
process of nature, that we can not adequately describe them 
otherwise. Another query that arises is, What does nature 
do now? It makes out of crude material new mixtures and 
compounds, but not new plants or animals. They come alone 
through an existing organization. Man makes watches and 
telescopes, but these do not make other watches and telescopes. 
Nature takes the same materials and makes a crude mixture 
we call slag. Nature does not make inorganization do the 
work of organization, unintelligence do the work of intelli- 
gence. Then the query arises. How can we account for what 
nature does not now, in a single instance, do ? Can we ascribe 
to nature what she does not now do, and what we have not a 
sliadow of evidence that she ever did ? 



STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. 85 

Then we are conscious of spontaneity in ourselves, sponta- 
neous action, thought and volition. AVe can arouse processes 
within, just as what acts through the senses arouses processes 
of thought. What is this spontaneous, self-acting agent that 
arouses within us processes of thought and emotion? What 
is it that takes cognizance of these processes, these acts of itself? 
If that which acts through the senses, and arouses these pro- 
cesses, be a real substantive agent, is not that which acts 
within and produces the same results also a real substantive 
agent ? This is another profound query in the problem that 
is overlooked or ignored by the physicist. Then we have 
nothing at one extreme of our path of investigation, and man 
and his highest achievements and powers at the other. In 
the first constitution of matter and force, we have the highest 
ideas of reason realized. In the co-ordination of matter and 
force, in chemical action, in crystallization, in vegetable life, 
in animal life, in rational life and its achievements, in the 
all-pervading plan and unity of the universe, are realized the 
highest conceptions of reason. The course of development is 
one along which we can travel only by means of these ideas, 
and because they are realized in it. Then the question is. 
Whence came all this? Such is a mere glance at the prob- 
lem, and the requirements of an adequate solution. We can 
give but a hint of the various fields of thought to be trav- 
ersed in endeavoring to grasp the demands of the problem. 
The world and its countless existences, and their countless 
processes, the universe and its vast worlds and systems, are 
the elements of tli-e problem. The question is. How came 
they into being? Would not we be justified in stopping and 
afiirming, " In the beginning Jehovah created the heavens 
and the earth"? 



36 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 



CHAPTER II. 

POSTULATA AND DatA.— OuR MEANS OF SoLVING THE 

Problem. 

In the previous chapter we endeavered to place before the 
reader the requirements of the problem, and to give him some 
conception of its infinite extent. The next question is, What 
means have we of solving the problem ? The agent on which 
we shall rely to do the work before us shall be the human 
mind ; and in that term we include man's entire rational, 
moral, and religious nature. Our first postulate then is, that 
man's entire mental nature, his rational, moral, and religious 
nature, shall be accepted, and no part ignored, discarded or 
denied. If we employ but a part of our instrument or agent, 
we can have but a partial result. If we reject or deny a part 
of our agent's powers or merns of solution, we reject a" part of 
our means of solving the problem, and a part of our agent's 
solution. Our second postulate shall be the integrity and re- 
liability of our nature, our whole nature, its each and every 
part, rational, moral and religious, and the reliability of its 
intuitions, its universal decisions, its catholic ideas, in each 
and every part, rational, moral and religious. Correction of 
errors by a higher use of reason, will be accepted of course, 
but the error must be established by a higher use of reason, 
and not by discarding reason ; and that which is substituted 
instead must be established by a higher use of reason, and not 
by a denial of reason. Our third postulate is the paramount 
authority of our catholic ideas and intuitions in investigating 
the problem and in solving it. If our nature— our whole 
nature— rational, moral and religious, be not reliable, and its 
deductions and decisions valid, all reasoning is at an end, even 
reasoning to convict our nature of unreliability. We can not 
set to one side a part of our nature as unreliable, and pretend 



QUE MEANS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. 37 

to accept hLiman nature as our guide and standard. Our moral 
and religious nature.must be accepted and trusted as implicitly 
as our rational nature, or what is called our rational nature, 
for we confess our inability to separate one from the otliers. 

Our fourth postulate is that our investigation shall be con- 
ducted in strict conformity to the methods of inductive philoso- 
phy, and our solution reached by exact obedience to its laws. 
We must first learn what the phenomena really are, how they 
actually transpire ; inquiring without prejudice or preconceived 
opinions what are the facts. We must also observe carefully 
what are the characteristics of the phenomena, for they are 
our principal, and often our sole means of determining the 
cause. Concerning each phenomenon and existence we must 
nsk : Of what made, or the material cause? In what manner 
made, or the modal cause ? In what form made on the for- 
mal cause? Then, by-what, or whom made, or the efficient 
cause? And, finally, for what purpose, or the final cause? 
Concerning phenomena, we inquire. Did they really transpire ? 
Avhen ? in what manner ? in what order ? in what connection ? 
What are the characteristics and nature? What produced 
them? For what end or purpose were they produced? As 
our deductions concerning the efficient cause of each existence 
and phenomenon, and especially concerning the nature and 
character of the efficient cause of each existence and phenom- 
enon, and our deductions concerning the design or final cause, 
must be largely deductions of reason based on the character- 
istics of the existences and phenomena, we must have clear 
conceptions of the principles that should control reason in this 
work, and of what decisions of our nature must be accepted 
and what can be questioned. We must have clear conceptions 
of the regulative principles and ideas of reason that can not 
be questioned, and of those catholic ideas and decisions that 
can not be denied without denying reason itself. As the phys- 
icist denies all the catholic ideas and intuitions of our nature 
that conflict with his predetermined conclusions, we are under 
the necessity of stating them at some length, reaffirming and 
re-establishing them. We may be under the necessity also of 

^'^^ating them in different parts of the book in order to com- 



38 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

pleteness of our argument. But if, by reiteration, we can 
emphasize them and impress them on the 'mind of the reader, 
we shall accomplish what we desire above all other things. 

The sources from which we obtain knowledge are: 1. Con- 
sciousness. 2. Sensation. 3. Intuition. We shall implicitly 
rely on these sources of knowledge and accept their affirma- 
tions when correctly expressed, properly limited and stripped 
of error. We shall insist also, on the agreement and harmony 
of all of these sources of knowledge in their affirmations if 
correctly interpreted. Neither one can say to the other, " I 
have no need of thee." Each is dependent on the others for 
fundamental ideas it uses in its work, for regulative principles 
and aid in perfecting its work. No system of truth can be 
based on consciousness, or sensation, or intuition alone. There 
is in the mind inherent faculty or power, and the mind has 
regulative principles controlling its action. When the senses 
appealing to the mind furnish the occasion, the mind has not 
only the contents of sensation, but also original convictions of 
reason above the contents of sensation. These are self-evident 
truths, and are fundamental ideas, and regulative principles. 
The tests of intuition are: 

I. They express the relation of things ; the underlying prin- 
ciple, the central idea of things. 

II. They are self-evident. 

III. They are necessarily true, and can not, in the nature and 
relation of things be otherwise than as they are, and true. 

IV. They are catholic or universal ideas, or all men have 
them from a proper exercise of the faculties of their reason. 

In appealing to the intuitions in our reasoning we must de- 
cide : I. Are they intuitions ? Do they express general prin- 
ciples? Are they self-evident? Are they catholic in their 
nature ? II. Are they correctly expressed ? If these queries 
are answered in the affirmative they must be implicitly accepted 
or all reasoning is at an end. To reason at all, we must accept 
the reliability and veracity of our nature in its intuitions, and 
its integrity in all its parts, rational, moral and religious. If 
our nature in its intuitions, be false and unreliable in any 
part, moral, rational or religious, there can bo no basis for 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PEOBLEM. 39 

reasoning ; no means of reasoning, no test of reasoning, no 
regulating reasoning, and no reasoning in any sense. This 
should be borne in mind, in examiniijg the speculations of the 
physicist, when he rejects the intuitions of our rational, moral 
and religious nature, as delusive imaginings or metaphysical 
speculations. 

We are now ready for the fundamental primal intuitions 
of our nature, on which we must base our solution of the 
problem stated in Chapter I, and by means of which we must 
solve the problem, and by which we must test our solution. 
What, then, are the postulata and data of reason? what are 
the characteristics of the phenomena, the nature of the phe- 
nomena, the elements we must use in solving the problem? 
These must be fully and clearly stated and established, or we 
can not reach an adequate solution of the problem. As fun- 
damental primal intuitions of our nature, and back of which 
we can not go, and which can not be questioned, we postulate : 
There is a Me, and there is a Not-Me. There is a Perceiving 
Self, and a Perceived-by-Self. These are distinct and differ- 
ent, and can not be confounded in our thinking, or the exist- 
ence and reality of either questioned in our reasoning. There 
is body or matter, and there is mind or spirit. Body or 
matter has objective and independent being — that is, it is not 
dependent on observation for being ; and it has external and 
extended reality ; and there is in body or matter potency 
affecting self, and causing it to be perceived by mind or self. 
We cognize or intuit in body or matter extension, divisi- 
bility, size, density, porosity, figure, impenetrability, mobility, 
inertia and situation. We cognize or intuit force as affecting 
matter, and force in bodies affecting other bodies. We intuit, 
by conscious, an existing, independent, abiding, potential self, 
as different from matter in which it resides, or our bodies, and 
as distinct from the organs which it uses, and which reveal 
matter and themselves and our bodies to the mind or self. 
We intuitively know and feel that the knowing mind is dif- 
ferent and distinct from our bodies known by it, and in which 
it resides, and which it uses, or matter known by it, or the 
organs or functions of our bodies it uses, and which reveal 



40 THE PROBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

matter and our bodies and themselves to the knowing mind. 
The faculties of the mind are consciousness and thinking, 
moral, responsible, personal attributes. 

We intuitively know and feel that matter has not these 
attributes, but that it has other properties that reveal it to the 
mind that has these attributes. AVe intuitively recognize that 
force belongs to body or matter, and faculty to mind. We 
intuitively know also that the force that we see in matter, the 
force that we control and use by our minds, the force that we 
cognize operating in our bodies, often independent of, and in 
opposition to, our mind, or in obedience to it, is not our mind, 
nor the same force as our mind. We intuitively recognize a 
difference between physical force, seen in insensate matter — 
vital force, sensation, and rational or -mental force or power. 
We can not resolve mind into matter or matter into mind, or 
physical force into mind or mind into mere physical force, 
modified by organization, no matter what our theories may 
be. We intuitively make the distinction, even while denying 
it and attempting to dis2:>rove it. These fundamental distinc- 
tions must be borne in mind in all our investigations and rea- 
sonings. We have also these necessary beliefs, space, infinite 
space, time infinite duration or eternit}^; also mathematical 
axioms and postulates, and the regulative principles of every 
department of science; also the primal and necessary belief 
of cause and effect. As this intuition, and the reasoning 
inseparably connected with and flowing from it, is the basis of 
all theistic arguments, the physicist has attempted to get rid 
of the argument by denying the intuition and falsifying our 
nature. There is no such thing as cause and effect. - It is 
merely a genehilized statement of invariable sequence, that 
things occur in an invariable order or succession. There is 
no potency in the cause to bring the effect out of non-being 
into being. It is merely time-succession. 

The intuition of cause and effect is more than a recognition 
of invariable association and succession. We recognize no re- 
lation of cause and effect in the invariable association of day 
and night, but we do in the conjunction of moon and tide. We 
mij!:ht see one train of cars follow another for thousands of 



OUK MEAKS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. 41 

years, or forever, and never dream of uniting them in the re- 
lation of cause and effect; but the first time we see the loco- 
motive and train, we instantly recognize the first as the cause 
of the motion of the second. We recognize a potency in the 
locomotive to cause the motion of the train. Then when the 
mind recognizes this relation of cause and effect, there is more 
than invariable association or succession. The mind recog- 
nizes in the properties or forces of one, power or potency that 
brings the other out of non-being into being. We may gaze 
on invariable succession forever, and never think of cause and 
effect, for we do not recognize a potency in one to bring: the 
other into being. This intuition is not the result of abstrac- 
tion or a generalized conclusion, for man acts on it before he 
can generalize or abstract. It is one of the first conceptions 
of the mind. Right here we lay down another postulate, the 
basis of all proper reasoning on this subject. Whence came 
the first cognition of this relation of cause and effect ? What 
caused the mind to evolve this intuition? The germinal idea 
and basis of all ideas and reasoning on this subject, we affirm 
to be the consciousness of man, that he is one indivisible, con- 
scious, thinking, willing, planning, responsible, free, moral 
self. He is conscious that there is, in himself, potency or 
power, controlling matter and force, and using them for 
certain ends. His idea, then, of power, force, and causation 
arises in consciousness of an energizing will, which is power 
in action, controlling second causes, our powers to produce 
an effect, our conduct. Almost the first intuition the child 
displays, is this intuition of personal, responsible causation. 
Hence' he recognizes causation wherever he observes a phe- 
nomenon, and makes the cause a personal, responsible cause. 
He assigns personality and responsibility to every object 
around him. Then physical science obtains this regulative 
idea of causation from mental phenomena and intuition. So 
also it obtains its conception offeree and power which it uses 
in its investigations, and in construing the phenomena of the 
physical world. The ideas, of law, order, and system are ob- 
tained also from the moral and mental world. They arise 



42 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

from consciousness of duty, obligation, plan, method, and sys- 
tem in our conduct and actions, and mental and moral life. 

Man is conscious, also, that his mind is an intelligent cause, 
producing order, arrangement, adaptation, adjustment, co-or- 
dination, de«5ign, contrivance, plan, method, and system, with 
prevision of, and provision for desired ends. He intuitively 
reasons and knows that co-ordination, order, adaptation, and 
adjustment, necessarily imply design, contrivance, plan, method, 
and system, and that design, contrivance, plan, method, and 
system necessarily imply an intelligence ; the efficient cause 
of this design, plan, and system, and that they can be pro- 
duced by intelligence alone. It is an intuition, as palpable as 
consciousness, that there is causation in the universe; that 
there is potency in certain things to bring others into being. 
It is an intuition as palpable as consciousness, that co-ordina- 
tion, adaptation, adjustment, design, plan, law, order, and 
method, imply intelligent causation. It is a truth as palpable 
as existence, that there is co-ordination, adjustment, arrange- 
ment, adaptation, design, plan, law, method, and system in na- 
ture. If a man denies this, he is not capable of being rea- 
soned with, nor worthy of one moment's further notice, for 
he has bid adieu to all common sense. In reasoning on cau- 
sation in nature, we inquire; 1. What are the phenomena — 
what has transpired ? 2. Time of the phenomena, or when it 
occurred — how often it occurred — how long it was transpir- 
ing, and in what order of succession it occurred? 3. In what 
manner, or how transpired? 4. What are the characteris- 
tics of the phenomena? 5. What produces the phenomena, 
or Avhat is the efficient cause? 6. For what end or purpose 
were the phenomena produced ? The first four queries are pros- 
ecuted chiefly as a means of determining the last two, and ser- 
viceable as they aid in this. The real object of science is to 
determine the efficient cause, and the final cause or purpose 
of things. What claims to be science, par excellence, at the 
present time, would reject as irrational and futile all inquiry 
concerning the efficient cause, and the final cause of phenora. 
ena. But in so doing it attempts to discard one of the most 
persistent and universal tendencies of human thought. Man 



I 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. 43 

invariably inquires when he observes a phenomenon, What, 
or who caused it, and for what purpose was it caused? All 
other, inquiries, such as the pliysicist would permit us to make, 
are merely prosecuted as a means to determine the efficient 
and the final causes. They are valuable only as they throw 
light on them. 

We are not precluded from inquiring into the efficient 
cause and the final cause, when we know the characteristics 
of the phenomena, and how they transpired, and have clas- 
sified them into bundles, and have labeled them after the 
manner of what is now called science. On the contrary, 
these are but steps to the real end of scientific investigation, 
the efficient cause, and the final cause. Nor would we be 
precluded from inquiring into the final cause, even if we knew 
the efficient cause. The mind persistently and intuitively 
inquires after final cause, as for what purpose a thing was 
done. The watch, the mind persistently declares, must have 
had a final cause or purpose, and it is never satisfied until it 
learns it. So it declares the eye must have had a final cause 
or purpose, and whether the physicist will or not, it will pros- 
ecute this query as persistently as it will reason at all. The 
inquiry into efficient cause always leads to intelligent cause, 
and the inquiry into final cause as clearly establishes an intel- 
ligent cause as the eye and its use in sight establishes the ex- 
istence of the sun, and that it is the source of light. Hence, 
the physicist would cut off all such inquiry. But he can not 
avoid intelligent causation in that way, any more than he can 
avoid light by exhorting men to pul;^ out their eyes, for they 
will not do his bidding and deprive themselves of sight. Nor 
will they do his bidding, and cease to inquire into the final 
cause of things as determining the character of the efficient 
cause. Nor will they do still greater violence to their com- 
mon sense, and cease to inquire after the efficient cause of 
phenomena. 

Then one of the fundamental postulates of all reasoning in 
solving our problem is the idea of causation. There is causa- 
tion in the universe. Every effect must have had an ade- 
quate cause. An effect implying intelligence must have had 



44 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

an intelligent cause. Co-ordination, adjustment, plan, law, 
and system must have had their origin in intelligence iis their 
efficient cause. The object of all scientific research is to de- 
termine the efficient and the final cause of phenomena. Such 
is the object of our present inquiry. When we have deter- 
mined this, we have solved our problem. Another funda- 
mental idea: In all our reasoning we pass from a knowledge 
of the finite to an apprehension of the infinite ; to a knowl- 
edge that the infinite exists, and to an apprehension of some 
of its characteristics. From a knowledge of finite portions of 
space, we pass through a relative infinity of finite portions 
of space to an apprehension of absolute infinite space, and 
how that space must be absolutely infinite. From knowledge 
of finite duration we pass through relatively infinite duration 
to absolute duration or eternity. From a relative infinity of 
microcosms we rise to an apprehension of the macrocosm or 
universe. From a relative infinity of finite causes, systemat- 
ically correlated as a whole or a system, we rise to an appre- 
hension of that which includes all causation — the absolute 
cause — the uncaused. From a relative infinity of conditions, 
co-ordinated and correlated as a whole, we rise to an appre- 
hension of that which includes all conditions, and is uncondi- 
tioned. Aom a relative infinity of the contingent, we rise to 
an apprehension of the necessary and absolute. From a rela- 
tive infinity of finite beings, we rise to an apprehension of ab- 
solute being. From relative infinite displays of forces, we rise 
to an apprehension of infinite force or omnipotence. From 
a relative infinity of displays of intelligence, we rise to an 
apprehension of infinite intelligence. 

Now, if our nature be reliable and a valid basis for reason- 
ing, and a trustworthy means of reasoning, these catholic and 
universal apprehensions must be valid and true. The objec- 
tive reality corresponds with the subjective notion. The 
physicist accepts the verity of our apprehensions of infinite 
space, infinite duration, and assumes the absolute and uncon- 
ditioned in^ matter and force, assuming, as he does, that they 
are eternal, uncaused, and absolute. AVe insist that we 
should accept the equally universal apprehension of infinite 



OTJE MEANS OF SOLVING THE PEOBLEM. 45 

intelligence, infinite causation, infinite intelligent causation. 
We have precisely the same ground for accepting the latter 
apprehension, that he has for accepting the former apprehen- 
sions. There is a gross inconsistency in his course that shows 
that the wish is father to the thought, and that not reason, 
but passion and prejudice, control him in his course. We 
must not confound apprehension with comprehension — a 
knowledge that a thing exists with a perfect knowledge of it. 
As all admit, we can apprehend infinite space and duration, so 
we can apprehend infinite intelligence. We wish now to call 
particular attention to the following data that we have and 
must use in solving the problem. We see around us proper- 
ties, attributes, and qualities — the attributes of subject. We 
can compare these, arid classify them, and generalize them, 
and learn thus the nature of subject. We see protension, 
movement, and succession, events transpiring in time, and 
having a beginning, necessary order and arrangement, expres- 
sive of power, and regulated power, which throws these char- 
acteristics back on the power that produced them, on that 
which regulates the power, and produces order, arrangement, 
system, plan, and law. We see that all things have a rela- 
tion to each other, a relation to the whole, and a comprehen- 
sive unity, which suggests system, method, plan, and law. 
We see things conditioned in time and space, which suggests 
the unconditioned as the necessary antithesis and ground of 
tlie conditioned. We see, in every part of the universe, 
things which have a necessary relation to reason and thought. 
Numeral and geometrical relation and proportion, in the def- 
inite proportion of the primitive elements, in the primordial 
constitution of things, and in chemical combination — sym- 
metrical relation and arrangement of parts in crystallization, 
and of parts and organs in all organized beings— the numeri- 
cal and geometrical relation an<l proportion of the forces and 
motions, masses and distances, and orbits of the planets and 
other heavenly bodies and systems, all of which are in exact 
mathematical relation and proportion. This science — mathe- 
matics — is the highest achievement of pure reason and of 
abstract thought, and its very highest ideas are realized in 



46 THE PROBLEM 01^ PROBLEMS. 

the universe, from each molecule hi it up to the infinite 
universe. 

The arrangement, co-ordination, and adjustment of all 
forces and powers in nature, is also in accordance with exact 
mathematical law, another realization of one of the highest 
conceptions of reason. Then these forces are co-ordinated, 
adjusted, and adapted to each other and the whole of nature. 
Tliere is a regular and uniform succession of new existences. 
All this necessarily implies design, plan, method, system, 
and law. There has been, from the commencement of or- 
ganic existence, an evolution of new species conformable to 
fixed and definite ideal archetypes, which necessarily implies 
a comprehensive plan and law, system and method, and co- 
ordination, adjustment, and adaptation. All these have the 
necessary ground in reason and thought. There is, all 
through organic nature, the adjustment and adaptation of 
organs to special functions. Diversified homologous organs, 
which are made to fulfill analogous functions, and the same 
organs made to fulfill various functions, yet maintaining 
a general plan, necessarily implies knowdedge, alternativity 
and choice. All these have their necessary and only con- 
ceivable ground in reason and thought. All these, also, show 
prevision of, and provision for, coming existences. So does 
the progressive unfolding of species in accordance with ideal 
archetypal forms. So does the provision for coming exist- 
ences revealed by geology. So also does the course of 
evolution claimed by the physicist. All this has its only 
conceivable ground in reason and thought. 

We have in the universe also these fiicts, which have their 
necessary ground in reason and thought, since they have a 
necessary relation to moral ideas and ends. There is a uni- 
versal tendency to discriminate between acts as voluntary and 
involuntary, and to attach accountability and responsibility 
to the latter, and regard them as either right or wrong. All 
this indicates a relation to an immutable standard of right. 
The universal sense of dependence, obligation and duty indi- 
cates relation to superior power, to absolute authority. The 
universal consciousness of accountability and resi)onsibility, syid 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE rROBLEM. 47 

the universal conviction that we endure the consequences of 
our actions, as a reward or punishment, indicates a relation 
to a Supreme Judge. The happiness that we see resulting 
from good conduct, and the misery we see resulting from evil 
conduct, here in this life, and the universal anticipation of a 
future life, in which it will be the same, indicates a relation 
to a Supreme Judge and Executive. 

As the physicist professes to take reason as his means of 
solving the problem and his standard, these universal and 
catholic ideas of reason, and the highest ideas of the noblest 
and regnant part of our nature, must be the chief elemenls 
in our solution. The integrity and reliability of our nature 
must be denied, and all reasoning rendered impossible, before 
we can repudiate these intuitions of our nature. They are 
verities and basis ideas, acting as motive powers, and as 
means and guides in our attempts to solve the problem of 
the universe, and as tests of our solution. 

We call attention to the following postulates and data, fur- 
nished us by reason and common sense, as regulative ideas in 
solving the problem before us. We have, in consciousness, 
the knowledge of our own minds as intelligent causes, pro- 
ducing order, arrangement, co-ordination, adjustment, adapta- 
tion, design, plan, method, and system. 

We intuitively recognize our powers as second causes, used 
and controlled by an intelligent cause, our mind, to produce 
these effects. We intuitively recognize intelligent causation 
whenever we see order_, adjustment, co-ordination, adaptation, 
design, plan, and system, with prevision of, and provision for, 
what follows. Have we these characteristics in the phenom- 
ena of nature ? In the regular recurrence of the same phe- 
nomena, in the same order and sequence, under the same cir- 
cumstances, which the physicist calls law, we see order. Li 
the harmonious action of the forces of nature, which the 
physicist calls acting under law, we see arrangement and co- 
ordination. In the uniform action of these forces, invariably 
producing the same phenomena, we see the adaptation of the 
forces to the production of the phenomena. In the action of 
each animal and plant, in accordance with the laws of its 



48 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

being and its surroundings, we see that each animal and plant 
was designed for this life, and its powers were contrived to 
meet this life as an end. In the harmonious action of all 
forces and all existences of nature, we see that these forces 
and existences were adjusted to each other and the whole of 
nature. In all this we see plan, system, method, and law. 

In the regular development and evolution of all nature, 
forward on an ascending scale of progression, that is claimed 
by the physicist, we see plan, forethought, and providence. 
A man who denies this bids adieu to all reason, and can not 
be reasoned with further. All this we see in nature, as can 
be proved by the language of the physicist in describing 
nature. All this which we see in each atom, organ, and sys- 
tem in nature, and in all nature, has its necessary and only 
conceivable ground in mind. A man who denies this can not 
be reasoned with, for he denies the fundamental affirmations 
of reason. We might as well attempt to reason with a man 
who denies that two and two are four. 

Man is conscious, and intuitively reasons- that order, ar- 
rangement, adjustment, adaptation, design, plan, method and 
system, in his own actions, have their necessary ground in his 
own conscious, personal, willing, rational, free, moral, respon- 
sible self He as intuitively reasons that co-ordination, order, 
arrangement, adjustment, design, plan, law, method and sys- 
tem in nature, with prevision of what foUows, and provision 
for it, have their necessary and only conceivable ground in a 
conscious, personal, willing, free, moral, rational mind, or in 
an Intelligent Cause. The physicist must either deny that 
there is co-ordination, adjustment, law, method and system in 
nature, and that these imply design, prevision of, and provision 
for, all that is evolved in the harmonious and orderly scale 
of development according to law, for which he contends, or 
he must deny that they have their necessary ground in mind. 
If he does either, he bids adieu to reason, and contradicts 
common sense, and is not worthy one moment's further 
thought. We speak confidently and positively, for we are 
conscious that we rest on the bed rock of fundamental truth, 
on the primordial basis of all reasoning. There has been 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. 49 

SO much dogmatism and impudent and arrogant denial of the 
plainest affirmations of common sense, and the fundamental 
intuitions of our rational nature, by those who profess to be, 
par excellence, men of science, that it is high time that the 
right of common sense and reason to be heard and respected 
be asserted with at least as great confidence and positiveness, 
as has been displayed in the absurd denial of their authority. 
It is quite fashionable now, in circles that arrogate to 
themselves all the science in the world, to sneer at all appeals 
to reason, and especially to intuitions, as metaphysics, on the 
principle that if you can not meet an opponent fairly, call 
him a bad name, and raise a prejudice against him. Doubt- 
less the old metaphysicians, who attempted to evolve a 
system of nature out of their internal consciousness, by a pri- 
ori principles of reason, committed many absurd blunders; 
but they at least used common sense in the outset, in rec- 
ognizing the truth that intuition, the fundamental principles 
and ideas of reason, must be the basis of all reasoning, and 
showed some respect for reason and some regard for common 
sense. But the physicist philosopher begins by denying the 
plainest affirmations of reason and common sense, or by 
sneering at them as metaphysics. The metaphysician at- 
tempted to determine the theory of the universe, without in- 
vestigating the universe itself The physicist attempts to 
investigate by casting to one side the only means of investi- 
gating, the intuitions of reason. The blunder of the meta- 
physician is that of the person who takes the proper tools, 
but does not use them right. The blunder of the physicist 
is that of the person who attempts to accomplish a piece of 
work by casting to one side the only implements by which 
he can possibly accomplish it. And certainly the metaphy- 
sician never perpetrated greater blunders than the physicist. 
The philosophy that assures us that perhaps there are worlds 
where two and two are five, or that design does not imply 
intelligence, that religion had its origin in dread of hunger, 
and conscience in a full stomach, and assimilates a parent's 
happiness in his child to pleasures of the appetite, or that as- 
sures us that there is no causation in the universe, and that our 



50 THE PEOBLE.M OF PKOBLEMS. 

minds are identical with the force that boils a kettle, and that 
the brain secretes thought as the stomach secretes chyle, or grows 
eloquent over the divine chemistry of the human organism, that 
transmutes cabbage into a divine tragedy of Hamlet, never 
ought to laugh at the Council of Salamanca, or any set of 
priests, theologians, or metaphysicians. Inductive philosophy, 
which these scientists profess to take as their guide, demands 
that we investigate the existence and phenomena of nature, 
and learn : What are their attributes, qualities, acts and 
characteristics in full ? When, how often, in what order, and 
during what time do they occur? In what manner do they 
occur? In all this investigation, we are to be controlled by 
the fundamental principles of thought, furnished by reason, 
which the physicist calls metaphysics. From these data we 
are to determine who or what produced the phenomena, or 
the efficient cause. The physicist denies this by asserting 
that there is no such thing as causation in nature. Lastly, 
we determine the final cause, or inquire for what purpose did 
the phenomena transpire. This the physicist utterly denies, 
assuring us that all inquiry into final cause is absurd. 

The physicist can not proceed one step in the investiga- 
tions, to w^hich he confines the use of the word science, with- 
out basing them on, and controlling them by, what he calls 
metaphysics. He can not even commence his investigations 
without using them as his means of investigation, and they 
suggested to him the idea of investigation. His methods of 
investigation are based on metaphysics; his comparisons, an- 
ticipations, deductions and speculations are all metaphysical. 
He can not move one step in scientific investigation without 
the rational ideas of co-ordination, arrangement, adaptation, 
adjustment, order, law, system, method, design, prevision and 
provision. It is on these he bases his speculations and de- 
ductions. It is by means of these that he prosecutes his in- 
vestigations, although he discards them as metaphysics. The 
regulative ideas of all science, the controlling principles of all 
knowledge, are metaphysical conceptions, above and back of 
all objects and phenomena. We can not move or think in 
scientific research without them. No one makes more use 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PEOBLEM. 51 

of them than does the physicist in generalizing his pheno- 
mena, and in classifying them in accordance with ideal con- 
ceptions, and in speculating on thera. 

Physical science, as now conducted, asks : What are the 
objects and phenomena ? When, how often, in what order, and 
during what time do they transpire ? What are their charac- 
teristics ? In what form do they exist ? In what manner did they 
occur ? All this is based on and controlled by a rational set of 
regulative ideas and principles furnished by metaphysics. It 
can accomplish this work only by using these ideas and being 
controlled by them ; and when it has determined the when, 
the how, and the what of phenomena, it has accomplished its 
work. It can not accomplish the real purpose and end of all 
investigation. It can not tell us what produced the phonem- 
ena, nor for purpose or end they were produced. An orderly 
arrangement and classification of the phenomena, and then 
labeling them in bundles, is not an explanation of the phe- 
nomena, or of their cause, efficient or final. 

Physicists seem to think that when they have classified the 
phenomena of nature into bundles, and ticketed them with 
high sounding names, and laid them on the shelves of sys- 
tems, they have explained the phenomena. When reason 
asks who or what produced the phenomena, and for what end 
or purpose they were produced, a claim is set up that the clas- 
sification explains all that. When this is exposed, we are 
gravely told that it is unscientific to inquire concerning the 
efficient cause of phenomena, or to ask who produced all this, 
and it is especially unscientific to inquire into the final cause, 
or for what purpose was all this done. The physicist well 
knows that if these queries are pressed, there is no avoiding 
intelligent causation in the universe; hence the attempt to 
silence them. But men will ask these questions. They re- 
gard them as the real goal of science. The work of the 
physicist is but the means and steps to these higher ends, the 
real object of all scientific research. Physical science is ut- 
terly impotent to settle these queries, the only useful end of 
physical investigation. Reason alone can settle them by 
means of metaphysics and religion. It takes the phenomena 



52 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

and their characteristics, as furnished by physical science, and 
from the nature of the phenomena and their characteristics, 
determine the cause — the nature and character of the efficient 
cause; and the final cause, or the purpose or end designed to 
be accomplished by the phenomena. Reason insists that the 
phenomena that physical science has reduced to a system, is 
the product of mind, or mind could not reduce them to sys- 
tem. Unless there is reason in the phenomena, unless the 
ideas of reason are realized in the phenomena, they can not be 
reduced to an intellectual, intelligent system by reason. 
Reason is not troubled about the law of the phenomena, or 
how this mind operated in producing the phenomena. Let 
physical science reyeal all it can concerning the law of the phe- 
nomena, and reason will accept it all and insist that it is a 
path along which mind must have moyed, and along which 
mind alone could haye moyed. If produced independent of 
mind, there would not be realized in it any rational idea that 
would render it intelligible to mind, and all science and scien- 
tific research would be impossible. 

Then we re-assert the supremacy of metaphysics over the 
bundles of labeled facts arranged on the shelves of the physi- 
cist, for without metaphysics their discovery and classification 
would have been impossible ; and without metaphysics they 
will remain forever valueless. The physicist is especially op- 
posed to an attempt to find teleology in nature, or to an 
attempt to find the object or purj^ose of any thing in nature, 
for the very idea of purpose or design implies the pre-existence 
of mind. Hence, in violation of all sense and every princi- 
ple of reason, we have a denial of all teleology in nature, even 
in such wonderful organs as the eye or the human hand. But 
the physicist can not describe the simplest operation or phe- 
nomenon of nature, witliout using teleological language, and 
recognizing teleology all through them. Darwin exhausts the 
vocabulary of teleological language in describing the processes 
of nature. " Wonderful design — admirable contrivance — 
beautiful adjustment — skillful adaptation — wise co-ordination." 
He speaks of gins, traps, spring guns, machines, contrivances. 
He invariably speaks of organs as designed and planned for 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. 53 

/heir special functions as purposes or ends. Wallace admits 
ihis, and apologizes for it, and says the terms are metaphori- 
cal, and that the necessity of using such terms, which he ad- 
mits is an infirmity of thought. If the terms are metaphori- 
cal, the processes of nature must contain teleological charac- 
teristics, or there would be no resemblance between man's 
works and nature's processess, permitting the use of the met- 
aphors, much less necessitating such use. But the use is not 
metaphorical, nor an infirmity of thought. The truth is, that 
processes of nature are of such a character that there can be 
no description of them without such use of teleological terms 
and expressions. There is teleology in nature. All nature is 
constructed on the principle of teleology, and no man can 
construe nature, or describe nature or its processes, except in 
teleological language. It is not an infirmity of thought, but a 
necessity and power of truth. The infirmity, the worse than 
infirmity, the absurd folly or dishonest deception, is in the 
madness and fatuity that attempts to deny it, and has to rec- 
ognize it in its own language while denying it and attempting 
to disprove it. 

The physicist dislikes the use of terms that necessarily imply 
the existence of mind when describing the processes of nature ; 
and yet he can not move one step in describing the processes 
or operations of nature, or the constitution of nature without 
using them. Does he say fixed laws or processes? The term 
implies the pre-existence of mind that fixed the laws and pro- 
cesses. Does he say established laws or processes ? The term 
implies the pre-existence of mind that established the laws and 
processes. Does he say regular uniform or orderly laws or 
processes ? The terms imply the pre-existence of mind that 
regulated the laws and gave them this uniform and unvarying 
order. Does he speak of the order of nature ? The term im- 
plies the pre-existence of mind that gave to it this order. 
Does he say unalterable, invariable, unchanging laws or pro- 
cesses? The terms imply co-ordination and adjustment of 
these mutually interacting laws and processes in this unchang' 
ing, unalterable operation. This implies the pre-existence of 
mind to produce such co-ordination and adjustment. Indeed, 



54 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

the very term law, so continually on the tongue of the physi- 
cist, is enough of itself to establish the pre-existence of mind. 
This is especially true when we consider what the 2)hysicist 
attributes to law. Hence, such is the primordial constitution 
of things, and such are the characteristics and nature of the 
processes and operations of nature, that we can not raoA^e one 
step in describing them without using terms that necessarily 
imply the pre-existence of mind. It is not an infirmity of 
thought, but a necessity of truth and reason. The physicist 
himself, when describing the constitution and processes of 
nature, or speaking of them, is compelled to use such terms and 
to so describe them, even while attempting to deny and dis- 
prove the great truth such use implies. In the course of evo- 
lution claimed by the physicist, we see co-ordination, plan, sys- 
tem, law, prevision, and provision, and he can not describe it 
without using these terms and recognizing these ideas in the 
evolution, for they are its fundamental characteristics. 

The principal work of the physicist is the classification of 
phenomena, and yet he recoils from the inevitable conse- 
quences of such classification. He can classify phenomena 
only by means of the highest conceptions of pure reason. 
The most abstract ideas, the highest conceptions of pure 
reason alone will classify nature, and express the system 
there is in it. These highest conceptions of pure reason are 
realized in nature, or it is systematized in accordance with 
them. Then, if nature can be construed only by the highest 
exercise of reason, it must have been constructed in accord- 
ance with reason, and by reason. Lewes admits that science 
is compelled to arrange and co-ordinate all facts in nature 
by means of ideal conceptions, in a general conception or plan. 
Darwin admits that we can not describe the facts and pro- 
cesses of nature without using these rational ideas. All ad- 
mit that they are thus compelled to use these rational ideas 
in describing the facts and processes of nature. Lewes at- 
tempts to evade the consequences, by terming this necessity 
an infirmity of thought. If this necessary and inevitable 
tendency of our minds be an infirmity, in what can we trust 
them? If these necessary ideas, these universal conceptions, 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. 55 

these intuitions that Ave are compelled, by the constitution 
of our minds and the nature of things to have, when we 
view the phenomena of nature, deceive us, what can we 
trust? Kather let us use common sense, and accept them, 
and reject as a worse than infirmity, a monstrosity, that per- 
version of thought, so treasonable to the nature it pretends 
to accept, that would reject them. In what sense does the 
physicist accept reason as his standard, when he thus arro- 
gantly casts to one side the necessary conceptions, the uni- 
versal intuitions of reason, and the rational basis of all rea- 
soning? 

When physical science undertakes to show that the methods 
of nature are a path along which mind could not have moved, 
and did not move, it can only do so by showing that they 
are incoherent, unideal and irrational. When it has done 
this, it has destroyed all possibility of science, even in the 
limited sense of the physicist, for there can be no classi- 
fication except in accordance with a rational or ideal con- 
ception. If such conceptions be not realized in nature, if it 
be not constructed in accordance with reason and by reason, 
it can not be construed by reason, or classified in accordance 
with reason, or rational and ideal conceptions ; and all sci- 
ence is an impossibility, and the efforts of the physicist are 
as much a chimera as the child's search for the bag of gold 
at the foot of the rainbow. With a preposterous fatuity, 
those who claim to be ^ar excellence the ones who are striving 
to render the universe intelligible, seem to think that they 
can only do so by denying all relation of the universe to in- 
telligence. It can be rendered rational only by denying 
that reason has had any thing to do with it, or that there 
are any evidences that reason ever had any conii^tion with 
it. We reaflSrm, that if it takes mind to constj>'ue the, uni- 
verse, and it can be done only in accordance with t^^high- 
est conceptions and ideas of reason, and by means cf them, 
then these ideas are realized in the universe, ^d it was 
constructed in accordance with them, and by reason using 
them and governed by them — a reason which realized them 
in the universe. Let the reader keep ever in mind this 



56 THE PllOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

postulate in examining the various solutions of the problem. 
When pressed with this thought, and silenced by it, the 
physicist seeks to evade it in another way. He can not 
evade the evidence of intelligent causation in the universe, 
and he attempts to cast to one side the conclusion, by urg- 
ing that we can not have any knowledge, even an appre- 
hension, of the infinite; and of course we can not apprehend 
or have any knowledge of Infinite Mind, or God. As we 
have already demonstrated, we can rise to an apprehension 
of the infinite in space and duration, and to a knowledge 
that they are infinite; and we can know some of the char- 
acteristics of the infinite in space and duration. This the 
physicist himself admits. He assumes, also, that matter and 
force are eternal, hence he assumes absolute being in matter 
and force; or the absolute, uncaused, and unconditioned in 
matter and force. Then, why not, we ask, have an appre- 
hension of the absolute, uncaused and unconditioned in mind, 
as well as in matter and force? Why not have the infi- 
nite, absolute and unconditioned in mind force, as well as in 
other force? If, as we shall yet show, we have to place 
mind back of the primordial constitution of matter and force, 
to give them this constitution, then the absolute, the un- 
caused, the unconditioned, that all assume, and that all ad- 
mit, must be mind. Why not admit mind to be eternal, 
as well as matter? Why make an idolatrous fetich of mat- 
ter, and insult our rational and spiritual nature by elevating 
it above mind? Then we affirm, as another postulate, that 
we can apprehend the infinite, have a knowledge that it ex- 
ists, and a knowledge of its attributes or characteristics. We 
prove this: 1. We have the terms infinite, absolute, etc., 
and as wm-ds are signs of ideas, man must have had the 
idea^or he never would have had the sign of it. 2. We 
have$6hionstrated that we have an apprehension of the in- 
finite in^s])ace and duration, and of their characteristics. 
We kn<||^a«pace and time are infinite, and we know their 
characteristics. 3. We show, by an examination of the 
language of those who deny that we can have an apprehen- 
sion of the infinite, that they assume that we have an ap- 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. hi 

prehension of, and a knowledge of, the infinite in space, du- 
ration, matter and force. We claim that we can in mind 
as well. 4. When the physicist affirms that we can not 
apprehend the infinite, he apprehends it in his affirmative 
that we can not apprehend it. If we can have no knowledge 
of it, how can he affirm that we can not apprehend it? Let 
the reader keep in mind this postulate in examining the ob- 
J3ctions of the physicist. 

There is an order pervading the universe that includes 
every atom, every organ, every animal, every plant, every 
species, every world, every system, the universe. There is 
an order and system in creation, in time, in succession, in 
method. It has existed through all epochs. There has been 
correlation of growths with surroundings and each other. 
There is a universal harmony in all nature and the universe. 
There is a co-ordination of forces. All this establishes a unity 
in the universe. The physicist also admits that we are com- 
pelled by the necessities and tendencies of our minds to co- 
ordinate and arrange all the facts of science into one system, 
by means of general conceptions of reason. The inevitable 
conclusion to be drawn from such a unitizing of the pheno- 
mena of the universe, is that such an ordei* and harmony and 
unity can be secured only by the action of mind, or intelli- 
gence acting on a plan. It sets to one side the objection of 
the physicist, that even if we concede that the phenomena of 
nature teach intelligent causation, we would have many causes, 
and not one cause. Lewes admits this necessity and tendency 
of science and thought, to unitize all phenomena and facts of 
science into one system ; but he, as usual, to evade its obvious 
theistic bearings, calls it an infirmity of thought. In no one 
thing does reason so exhibit its strength, as in these grand 
generalizations, and in unitizing the universe. In it, reason 
reaches one of the central ideas of the universe. Then this 
thought that there is one order, one system, one plan pervad- 
ing the universe, is another postulate to be used in our work. 

The physicist claims to take reason as his standard. From 
the twilight of authentic history to the present, in nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine 



58 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every 
hundred million, man's nature, human reason, has given and 
accepted these universal ideas, these intuitions : God, crea- 
tion by him, government by him, responsibility to him, retri- 
bution by him, prayer, providence, religion, and worship. 
Pretending to accept reason as his standard, the physicist 
rejects these universal ideas of reason, the highest and most 
exalted conceptions of the noblest part of our nature. If 
there be, as the physicist claims, evolution, and evolution by 
law, or controlled by law, these ideas are the result of that 
evolution. Man is the highest product of evolution, and his 
rational, moral and religious nature the noblest part of his 
nature, the apex and crown of evolution. If this evolution 
be in accordance with law, and controlled by law, these ideas 
must be in accordance with that law, and be the highest 
expression of that law. Then, if true to his own standard, 
reason, the physicist should not reject these catholic ideas of 
reason. Above all, he should accept these ideas as the high- 
est expression of the law of evolution, which he recognizes as 
the highest authority, and the controlling power in the uni- 
verse. Then, accepting the highest expression of the physi- 
cist's law of evolution, and the highest result of evolution, and 
the highest conceptions of the noblest element of the crown- 
ing result of this evolution, and the standard of the physicist, 
we postulate these catholic ideas. 

The question of absolute creation can not be settled by 
science — :physical science, as the physicist uses the term. 
Using science in broader and truer meaning, and including 
metaphysics, mental and moral philosophy, and religion, and 
every domain of thought and truth, absolute creation is a 
question of science ; but when used in the sense of mere phys- 
ical science, absolute creation is foreign to and above its 
sphere. Physical science can only investigate derivative crea- 
tion through reproduction. It has neither data nor means of 
reaching them, that reach the question of absolute creation. 
The religious world has conceded too much to the physicist, 
wlien it allows him to attempt to settle the question of crea- 
tion, the creation of species, or the origin of species, by his 



OUE MEANS OF SOLVING THE PEOBLEM. b\) 

methods. If physical science has in its knowledge or expe- 
rience the phenomenon to be accounted for, then it lias the 
data to settle the question, and can apply its methods. But 
the origin of a new species, by the conditions set forth by 
Darwin, or by evolution, or any known process of nature, is 
utterly beyond the knowledge of science. It can show that 
previous to a certain period a species did not exist, and that 
after a certain period we meet with it ; but it can not give 
a scrap of proof to show that any known process or force of 
nature ever produced a single species, in any period of the 
earth's history, during geological or historic time. Hence, so 
far from it being the province of physical science to settle the 
question of origin of species, it is utterly beyond its province. 
It is presumption and absurdity to attempt to apply the meth- 
ods of physical science to the solution of the question, for 
there are no data to which its methods apply. It must be 
settled by reason alone. Reason and religion must settle the 
question of absolute creation, and it can not be done if we 
reject the most exalted ideas of reason on this very subject. 
Belief in the creative energy, and action of an intelligent 
cause, does not rest on the facts and grounds furnished by 
physical science, but on primary intuitions, that can no more 
be denied or set aside than the reason that evolves them. 
Physical science can no more test them or disprove them than 
it can the axioms of mathematics, for they do not rest on the 
facts of physical science any more than the axiom that the 
sum of the parts equals the whole, rests on the physical 
nature of the parts and the whole. Belief in the creative 
energy of intelligence can no more be tested by the tests of 
physical science than the chemist can determine in his cruci- 
ble whether an affirmation of our moral nature that an act is 
wrong, is correct or not. Physical science can collect the 
phenomena and facts of the universe. It can reveal to us the 
time, the manner, and the characteristics of the phenomena. 
It can reveal the characteristics of the phenomena by the aid 
of reason. But the question, who produced the phenomena, 
and for what end were they produced, can only be settled by 
reason, using all the regulative ideas of our rational, moral 



60 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

and religious nature, as tested by these catholic intuitions. 
Until physical science can meet with a case of absolute crea- 
tion, the question is beyond its province, and utterly foreign 
to it and its methods. It can only furnish to reason the data 
it uses in settling the question, and reason alone can decide it. 
It is a violation of every principle of inductive philosophy, 
tliat refuses to investigate the unique phenomena of mental 
nature, so dissimilar to that of the rest of nature, and to 
reason from their characteristics to their cause. The physi- 
cist very properly investigates the phenomena of the rest of 
nature, and reasons from their characteristics to the cause, 
and the character of their cause. But, in violation of every 
principle of true philosophy, he either assumes the similarity 
of the phenomena of mental nature and the rest of nature; 
in contradiction of every sense, or in violation of every prin- 
ciple of common sense, he extends the results reached in the 
physical world to the radically dissimilar mental world. As 
we have said, we must investigate all nature and its phenom- 
ena, and especially the highest phenomena in nature — mental 
phenomena. Man's Avill is a cause and an element in nature, 
and gives us our entire idea of causation. We must take 
man's mental nature, his rational, moral, and religious nature, 
into account. We must include this highest part of nature, 
and its phenomena, the most exalted in nature, the regulative 
phenomena of all reasoning. In solving our problem, we 
have, as our highest idea, our most important element, man's 
will, mind, moral and religious nature, and all they suggest- 
Again, proving that nature is controlled by law, does not ex- 
plain the cause of the phenomena of nature. It only estab- 
lishes the character of the cause. It does not set to one side 
the idea of Creator and Ruler, but, on the contrary, it only 
establishes its truth. The question is, what is the character 
of the law ? Is it a law of fiital, physical necessity, or a law 
of a rational being? Back of all ideas of matter lies the idea 
of the adaptation of the elements and properties of matter to 
each other, and their co-ordination and adjustment. Back of 
aU ideas of force lies the idea of the adjustment of forces, co- 
ordinating them to each other. Invaiiableness of the law 



OUR MEANS OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM. 61 

does not destroy the idea of adjustment and purpose. On 
the contrary, it only renders the law susceptible of being used 
by will for a purpose, by changing the conditions. Laws of 
nature are rendered subservient to purpose in nature, by ap- 
plying other laws by means of mechanical or other contriv- 
ances, just as in art. In the wing of a bird, and in a tubu- 
lar column is secured the greatest strength, with the greatest 
lightness of material. Then the character and nature of these 
laws, if they are law\s of rational character, rational laws of 
intelligence, establishes the idea of Creator and Kuler ! 

Now if we have accomplished our purpose in this chapter, 
we have placed before the reader these postulates and data, 
to be used in solving our problem. 

I. Our means of investigation, and our standard must be hu- 
man reason, man's rational, moral, and religious nature. 

II. We must accept all of man's mental nature, his moral 
and religious, as well as his rational nature. We can not pre- 
tend to take man's mental nature as our standard, and reject 
its highest and regnant element, his moral and religious nature. 

III. We must accept the integrity and reliability of our na- 
ture in its each and every part, and the validity of its cath- 
olic ideas. 

IV. The catholic ideas of our nature are our highest au- 
thority in solving the problem, and in testing our solution. 

V. We must investigate all nature, and accept the phenom- 
ena of all nature, and not reject the phenomena of the most 
exalted part of nature — our moral and spiritual nature. 

VI. We have- given the regulative ideas of reason .that 
must control our investigation, and test the result we reach. 

VII. We have called the attention to the fact that all the 
catholic ideas of reason, and its most exalted ideas, are realized 
in the universe. 

VIII. AVe have shown that the physicist rejects the intui- 
tion of causation — the intuition of teleology in nature. He 
rejects the intuitive recognition of mind in the terms used in 
describing the phenomena of nature. He rejects the great end 
and purpose of scientific research, the efficient and final causes 
of phenomena. He rejects the classification of phenomena by 



62 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

the ideas of pure reason. We have exhibited the folly of his 
rejection of what he calls iiietaphysics. We have shown that 
he rejects the controlling idea of science, unitizing phenomena 
by ideas of reason. We have exposed his rejection of the 
catholic ideas of reason, and of our moral and religious na- 
ture. 

IX. We have shown that the most abstract and exalted 
ideas of pure reason are realized in every part of nature. With 
these postulates and data, after an examination of the various 
solutions, we shall be ready to test the solutions, and deter- 
mine which meets the demands of the problem, and will stand 
the test of these truths, by accepting, using, and agreeing 
with them all. 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIOl^S OF THE PROBLEM. 63 



CHAPTER III. 

The Vareous Solutions of the Problem. 

We have now placed before the reader the demands of the 
problem, and the data we have and must use in its solution. 
In this chapter we purpose a brief statement of the various 
solutions of the problem offered for our acceptance as prelim- 
inary to an examination of each. 

I. Chance. — All phenomena and all being is, and ever has been, 
the result of chance or a blind fortuitous concourse of atoms. 
Perhaps no sane person ever did absolutely believe this theory, if 
we can call it such ; but some have attempted to take refuge 
in it from the idea of divine government and retribution, or 
as an escape from the perplexities and mysteries enshrouding 
the problem of the universe. 

II. Fate or necessity. — All things have been brought into 
being by resistless, undeviating fate and necessity, and are now 
governed by it. There are various phases of this theory. 
1st. The present order of things is eternal, and holds on in 
its course under the control of relentless, unchanging neces- 
sity. 2d. At first there was a fortuitous concourse of atoms 
and phenomena, until the present order of things, by fate or 
chance, obtained and became an established and fatal neces- 
sity. This is the theory of ancient fatalists. 3d. Theories 
of development. Some think that development began in a 
fortuitous concourse and action of matter and force that re- 
sulted in evolution, or in starting a course of evolution. Others 
hold that this course of evolution is eternal, and has eternally 
been under the control of law. All atheistic theories of de- 
velopment are theories of fate or necessity. They have only 
added the term law to ancient theories. This law is a law of 
fatal necessity, not controlled by intelligence. The denial of 
spontaneity in nature, even in man and in mind, and of free- 



64 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

dom of the will, providence, prayer, forgiveness of sin, and 
the talk of nndeviating, unchanging law that abounds in the 
speculations of physical science and evolutionists, show that 
they are but modernized statements of ancient theories of 
fate. The ancient system of Lucretius and Epicurus were an- 
ticipations of modern speculations. Matter and force are 
eternal. Motion is an eternal and inherent property or state 
of force. Force in motion acts on matter, and matter in turn 
reacts and modifies force, and by their action, reaction, and 
interaction, is evolved inorganic, organic, and vital exist- 
ences. So the ancient hylozoic theory was an anticipation of 
certain modern speculations. It assumed that the present 
order of things is eternal. The two entities or existences 
whence all sprang w^ere matter and phenomena. Matter was 
pervaded by plastic life (life susceptible being molded into all 
forms) and by intelligence. Tyndall's Belfast s]3eech was 
but a modernized statement of this speculation of ancient 
thought. 

III. Theory of Nescieiice or Ignorance. — There is a distinc- 
tion between the me and the not-me, but we can know noth- 
ing of either absolutely or in their essence. We can only 
know that they exist, and learn and recognize their differen- 
tia. There is a distinction between mind and matter, but we 
can learn and believe nothing of either in regard to their ab- 
solute nature or essence. We can only know that they exist, 
and recognize their difftTences. We can learn and know no- 
thing of the ultimate or absolute, and can know nothing of 
the infinite and unconditioned. We can learn nothing of ul- 
timate causes, or of the Ultimate Cause, or of the Absolute 
or Infinite Cause. We can have no knowledge, not even an 
iippreliension or idea of tlie infinite. It is folly to undertake 
to learn any tiling concerning the infinite, or to speculate 
concerning it. Let us confine ourselves to the what we know 
exists, and to what we can learn concerning them ; their dif- 
ferentia and their phenomena, although we can not learn 
any thing concerning their nature. We need not know any 
thing of the ultimate and infinite. It is not practical knowl- 
edge, nor is it scientific to attempt such inquiries. The term 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 65 

God is merely an expression for a mode of the unknowable, 
like the term X in an indeterminate equation. All exist- 
ences are the result of a force which is a mode of the unknow- 
able. This misty conception of a nothing-something, or an 
indefinite something-nothing, is the acme, the ne 'plus ultra of 
all science. Concerning the force of which this phantasm is a 
mode we can know nothing, and can learn nothing. This 
theory was furnished to the atheists by illogical attempts of 
Christians to establish and defend the necessity of revelation. 
Kationalists claimed, 'by searching, to find out God — to attain 
to a complete knowledge of him. Apologists for Christianity 
took the position that reason could not know that which is 
infinite, and as a necessary consequence the Infinite must re- 
veal himself. Spencer accepted the premise that reason can 
not know the infinite, and carried it out to a logical conclusion 
when he asserted that if reason could not know the Infinite, 
could not apprehend him by reason, neither could it by rev- 
elation. If reason could not apprehend the Infinite, it was 
impossible for the Infinite to reveal himself to 'what could not 
apprehend such a revelation of the Infinite. He thus dec- 
orously bowed the Creator out of the universe through the 
back door of nescience, opened by Hamilton and Mansel, and 
through which they supposed they had driven atheism, and 
then shut the door in our faces, and now coolly tells us that 
all inquiry concerning what is back of it is folly and unscien- 
tific. It is not the first time that misguided zeal has furnished 
weapons to an enemy. It is the most popular refuge of athe- 
ism at the present time. 

IV. Pantheism. — In its extreme form it assumes that there 
is infinite, absolute being in matter and force alone. Neither 
is conscious or voluntary. They are subject to development, 
of necessity. This development continues from everlasting to 
everlasting. Eastern or Indian philosophy is pantheistic. 
So are many of the phases of modern evolution. Since a 
progression in eternity would have been perfect, and as things 
are not perfect, the Brahman invented a theory of cycles. 
Each existence, and the universe itself, runs endlessly through 
a series of cycles, ever returning to the starting at the close 
6 



66 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

of each cycle. Modern evolution has resorted to the same 
subterfuge to evade the same difficulty. It has each cycle 
begm in a turbulent chaos, and has it close Avith a catastro- 
phe that reduces all existence to chaos, in which it commen- 
ces a new cycle. In this dreamy system, which has a fascina- 
tion for certain poetical, mystically inclined minds, we are told 
that in the finite alone do we know or apprehend the Infinite. 
The finite is the infinite in existence or realized. God is the 
universe, and the universe is God. There is no conscious 
power or intelligence in the universe except as developed in 
the finite. God attains his highest consciousness in man. 
Intelligence is ever rising from the boundless ocean of exist- 
ence like vapor from the sea, and returning back to the infin- 
ite and eternal ocean of being like the rain-drop to the sea. 
Since this theory makes all phenomena and being a part of 
the ever-realizing infinite, the infinite realized, it destroys 
all distinction between conduct and acts. Sin and virtue are 
alike modes of the infinite, and alike in essence and nature. 
And since all being and phenomena are hound up in the In- 
finite, all freedom and responsibility are impossible, and mere 
chimeras. 

There are various phases of pantheism. In some of its 
phases, God is merely a term for an universal force that 
exhibits intelligence only when modified by matter in organ- 
ization. Certain phases of the evolution theory accord with 
this position. Or, God means merely a world soul like vital 
force in the tree. Some carry the conception higher, making 
the term God mean a world soul like the soul of the animal. 
The higher the organization in which it is manifested, the 
higher the expression of this vital force or world soul. Some 
make God merely latent or nascent life or intelligence per- 
vading all matter, and susceptible of development by condi- 
tions, as latent heat is developed by conditions. In all these 
phases of pantheism, it is assumed that God attains his 
highest consciousness in man. These are really atheistic, and 
all these phases of pantheism are atheism. There is often an 
attempt to conceal this by taking refuge behind the use of 
such phases as God, the infinite, etc.; and often a denial of 



THE VARTOTTS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 67 

atheism is made with much assumed indignation, when the 
grossest atheism is liid under such subterfuges. There are 
theories professing to be theistic that are pantheistic in real- 
ity. God is recognized as Spirit and as eternally active and 
conscious, but he is related to the universe as the human 
spirit is to the body. Milton's theory that God and matter 
were alike self-existent and eternal is of this character. It 
strips God of independence and self-sustenance, and limits 
him, and subjects him to the necessary properties and laws of 
matter. We can not conceive of the universe as consisting, 
at first, of infinite mind and infinite matter, or of infinite 
mind and infinite laws that are self-existent, or of infinite 
mind and infinite resources, that are eternal and self-existent, 
Avithout limiting and finiting God, by infinite matter, or in- 
finite laws, or infinite resources; and entering on the descend- 
ing inclined plane that will land us in the abyss of atheism. 
We must place mind back of all matter, law, and resources, 
creating, constituting, and co-ordinating them. Much of 
modern poetry sentimentalism and speculatism is pantheistic. 
It has a fascination for dreamy, sentimental minds, inclined to 
mysticism. Spiritism is a system of pantheism, and often of 
the grossest kind. 

V. Theories of development or evolutioyi. — Of these there are 
three phases: Cosmical development, physiological develop- 
ment, and historical development. 1. Cosmical development. 
This undertakes to account for the origin, forms and motions 
of the plants and systems that constitute the physical uni- 
verse, and for their physical constitution, and for the universe 
itself. 2. Physiological development. This undertakes to ac- 
count for all life and varieties of life, both animal and 
vegetable, by what are called laws of nature, or natural law. 
3. Historical development. This undertakes to account for the 
progress of the human race in arts, civilization, science, gov- 
ernment, social and domestic life, religion and morality ; and 
for all rational, moral, and religious ideas and systems, by 
natural law or laws of nature. Let us now examine them in 
detail: I. Cosmical development. There are two phases 
of this theory. The one first proposed, merely attempted to 



68 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

account for the solar system, and then to extend the theory, 
by analogy, to the universe. It began by assuming that all 
the matter in the solar system was once united in a vast globe 
of highly heated vaporous or gaseous matter, surrounded by 
an atmosphere enormously expanded by extreme heat, to far 
beyond the present confines of the solar system. By the 
radiation of its heat into sidereal space, the fiery mass and 
heated atmosphere cooled and became greatly condensed. 
The motion imparted to each particle by heat caused a mo- 
tion of the mass, which began to revolve around its center. 
As it cooled, the rotation on its axis increased, until the centri- 
fugal force overcame gravity and cohesion, and revolving rings 
of vapor, revolving around their annular center and around 
the central mass, were projected into space. These, if uniform 
in density, might continue to revolve in an annular form, as 
did the rings of Saturn, but on account of unequal density and 
cohesion, would be apt to be broken up, and aggregated into 
masses as in the planets, revolving around the central mass in 
orbits, and on their own centers. These in turn might throw off 
rings like those of Saturn, and these might be broken up and 
aggregated in satellites, revolving on their axis, and around 
the primary, and with it around the central mass. Other 
systems in sidereal space were generated in this way, and 
perhaps a vast number of these by a still vaster mass, and 
so on, continually involving still vaster masses, until the 
absolutely infinite universe is included in the hypothesis. 

The later phase was suggested, the nehulce or cloud-like 
masses observed in all parts of the heavens. They were 
conjectured to be immense masses of stellar matter, or star- 
dust, in an exceedingly tenuous or gaseous condition. It was 
assumed that here were instances of systems in process of 
formation, or in the initial condition of all systems. This 
suggested the nebular hypothesis, which attempted to account 
for the universe, as the system just stated accounts for the 
solar system. It varies from that, in starting with the uni- 
verse and reasoning down to the solar system, whereas that 
began with the solar system and passed out to the universe. 
All space, absolute space, was once pervaded by matter in the 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 69 

form of liiglily heated vapor, or as matter in a gaseous con- 
dition, from intense heat, called fire-mist, or star-dust, or 
stellar vapor. In consequence of different degrees of density, 
arising from different degrees of heat, or other circumstances, 
such as differences in velocity or motion, or from some cause 
now inexplicable, aggregations of this fire- mist began around 
certain points, or in certain nuclei. In consequence of un- 
equal centripetal velocities, or unequal densities of the parti- 
cles, or some unknown cause, these converging and impinging 
particles began a rotary motion around the centers of con- 
vergency or of these nuclei. Then, by attraction of these 
nuclei, other particles were attracted, until vast portions of 
sidereal space were occupied by these enormous globes of 
highly heated gaseous matter, surrounded by a stdl vaster 
atmosphere, enormously expanded by intense heat. Immense 
portions of sidereal space, around these vast globes, were 
thus vacated by matter, and reduced to the condition of 
space outside of the atmosphere of our planets. Then began 
in each system the genesis of planets and satellites described 
in the former phase of the theory. 

When a planet was first aggregated into a globular form, 
it was in a highly heated condition, a mass of highly heated 
gaseous matter, in which were all the elementary substances 
of matter, or that out of wdiich they were formed, in a choatic 
mechanically mixed mass of intensely heated vapor or gas. 
Chemical action was latent as yet, or overcame by intense 
heat. After the lapse of an immense period of time, this 
globe cooled b}^ radiation, so that crusts began to be formed 
on its surface. By the tidal influence of moon and sun, and 
by the eruption and explosive forces of its own mass, these 
were broken up for a long time. After a while, however, it 
became sufficiently cooled to form a permanent crust, subject, 
however, to great upheavals and fractures by the now con- 
fined fiery center. The water in the cooling mass, at first 
formed an envelope around it of steam or heated acid vapor, 
shrouding the planet that was without light or atmosphere. 
Then, this steam, being cooled, began to fall in dense rain, to 
be driven back in steam by the still heated crust, until at 



70 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

last the crust became sufficiently cooled to retain the water on 
its surface in an universal ocean. Chemical action had ere 
this began to form substances and compounds, and es})ecially 
the first rock of the globe, that which formed the crust of the 
globe. By chemical action, water and air had been formed 
around the globe. Still the atmos])here was largely impreg- 
nated with vapor, acid vapor, and steam, and immense clouds 
and constant rain were the condition of the entire surface of 
the globe. 

In the course of time, by the action of internal heat, por- 
tions of the earth's crust were elevated above the hitherto 
universal ocean, and subjected to the decomposing influences 
of air and water, and formed into earths. In consequence of 
original and inherent differences in the particles of fire-mist, 
or in consequence of the influence of different conditions on 
its particles, arose tbe different elementary substances, known 
as the original elements of matter, or the sixty elementary 
substances. In consequence of original and inherent differ- 
ences in the particles of fire-mist, and in consequence of the 
influence of different conditions on the original particles of fire- 
mist, arose the diff*erent properties of these different element- 
ary substances. In like manner, in consequence of original 
differences in the forces, or in consequence of different condi- 
tions to which the one force was subjected, arose the different 
forces of nature, or the different manifestations of the one 
force of the universe. If these differences of substances and 
properties of substances, and of forces and properties of forces, 
were in the original fire-mist, we can only say they were in- 
herent, original, and eternal. If they arose from differences 
in conditions, these differences of conditions and influences are 
inexplicable, except so far as an explanation may be involved 
in the declaration that they are original, inherent, and 
eternal. By mechanical action of attraction, adhesion, and 
cohesion, homogeneous masses were formed out of the mixture 
containing all these elements. By chemical action, which is 
also inexplicable, except as we say it is inherent in matter, 
and original and eternal, arose the vast number of chemical 
compounds in nature. We have now the sixty original ele- 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 71 

mentary substances, and the different properties of matter, 
and the different physical forces. We have homogeneous 
masses formed by mechanical action of forces, and chemical 
compounds formed by chemical action and crystallization. 
But we have no life, and no organic arrangement of matter, • 
in which life is manifested. Some have cosmical evolution 
close before chemical action, and make chemical action the 
starting point and basis of physiological evolution, the starting 
point and basis of life and organic matter. Others make 
chemical action a part of cosmical evolution. It was evi- 
dently present and active in cosmical evolution long befoie 
life appeared ; hence they make it a part of such evolution. 
They recognize the chasm between chemical action and crys- 
talhzation, no matter how complex and wonderful; and life 
and organic matter, no matter how simple, and throw chemi- 
cal action back into cosmical evolution, and begin physiologi- 
cal evolution on the other side of the chasm between organic 
and inorganic matter. 

II. Physiological Development. — This theory under- 
takes to account for all organic matter, and for all vegetable 
and animal life, and for all varieties of animal and vegetable 
life. The advocates of this theory have always experienced 
great difficulty in getting a starting point for this hypothesis. 
The query arises at the very commencement : Whence came 
life ? Often an attempt is made to evade it, or to silence in- 
quiry, but reason and common sense will not down at their 
bidding, or be evaded ; but persistently press the query : 
Whence came that wonderful phenomenon called life? AYas it 
originally, inherently, and eternally in matter? Was it and 
is it now latent or nascent in all matter ? If not, why present 
now in some matter and not in other matter? If latent or 
nascent in some or all matter eternally, how is it developed 
and made active ? When and how does it pass from its latent 
into an active form, or tangible form, and manifestations? 
What causes or conditions cause such a change? Whence 
came the conditions, and how do they accomplish such a 
change? If life is not latent in any or all matter, whence 
does it come when it appears ? How can matter and force 



72 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

evolve what is not in them? Or what can evolve out of them 
what is not in them ? If neither of them be true, then it must 
be a creation. It is thought that the new doctrine of correla- 
tion of forces solves this difficulty, and hence it is eagerly- 
seized by the advocates of physiological developments, as a 
means of helping them out of the difficulty. It is stated 
thus. There are not several forces in the universe, much less 
several distinct and antagonistic forces. What appear to be 
such, are merely different manifestations of the one force per- 
vading the universe. The different manifestations are but 
different modifications of this one force, caused by different 
conditions, or by difference in the matter or combinations or 
organization of the matter in which the force is manifested, or 
the different circumstances or conditions in which it is mani- 
fested. But immediately the query arises: "Is this state- 
ment true? Has it been demonstrated? Are vital and ani- 
mal force and life, and their wonderful manifestations, the 
same force as seen in inorganic nature? Are sensation, life, 
instinct, reason, emotion, volition, thought, and mental and 
moral action produced by the same force as rustles the leaf 
and burns the brand ? " Intuition and reason has ever made 
a distinction, have ever recognized an insuperable chasm be- 
tween tliem. They can be shown to be antagonistic and 
mutually destructive of each other. But even if true, corre- 
lation of forces merely shifts the difficulty. It does not re- 
move it, for still the query presses : How is this wonderful 
modification of this one force accomplished? Whence came 
these conditions, this organization that accomplishes these 
wonderful results? 

All agree that there is a point at which and above which 
we can and do apprehend that life is present. All agree that 
there is a point below which and at which we apprehend that 
life is not present. In one case we apprehend that life and its 
manifestations are present, and that there is organic combina- 
tion of matter, prevaded by life. In the other, life is not 
present, or its manifestations; and there is merely inorganic 
combination of matter, destitute of life ; or an organic com- 
bination that has lost life. These points may not be coinci- 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 73 

dent, and there may be a debatable land between them, yet 
there is a point, above which we can say there is life present, 
and organic combination of matter pervaded by life; and a 
point below which we can say there is no life, no organic com- 
bination pervaded by life. As to the origin or genesis of life 
when it does appear and become tangible, we have the theory 
of spontaneous generation in its various forms of archegenesis, 
heterogenesis, and abiogenesis. Archegenesis is based on the 
idea that life was latent or nascent in matter in its original 
and eternal constitution. It is developed or made active by 
chemical action or other conditions. Life is either a different 
manifestation of the one force pervading the universe, and the 
difference is caused by difference of organization of matter in 
which it is manifested, or other conditions. Or if it be a 
distinct and different force, it was eternally, originally, and 
inherently latent in matter, and was rendered active by condi- 
tions, chemical action or otherwise. Abiogenesis (or the pro- 
duction of life out of that which has no life) is the assumption 
that by suitable conditions, such as chemical action, elec- 
tricity, or the action of some natural force or agent, life is 
evolved out of that which displays no life. Whether there is 
a real creation, or merely a radically different display of what 
already existed, is a question concerning which there are 
differences of opinion ; and often fluctuations of opinion in the 
same persons, as they are pressed with different phases of this 
crucial difficulty. Heterogenesis (or the production of some- 
thing strange, or foreign, or different) is applied to both 
archegenesis and abiogenesis, but it properly includes only the 
latter. The term heterogenesis has been applied also to the 
production by living organisms of something different from 
themselves. To avoid confusion, the latter phenomenon is 
now called xenogenesis (the production of something strange 
or unusual), and heterogenesis is applied only to the produc- 
tion or evolution of life out of what has no life. 

Having life as a starting point, there are various phases 
of physiological development, to account for the origin of 
species and varieties of animal and vegetable life. 

I. Through a force which is a mode of the unknowable. 



74 THE PKOBLEM OF PliOBLEMS. 

n. Through external forces. 1. Transmutation of species by 
external surroundings. 2. Conflicts of individuals, resulting 
in survival of fittest or natural selection. Some extend these 
speculations back over the origin of life. Some include in 
the evolution the entire vital world, with mental and moral 
nature. Some exclude from the evolution mental and moral 
nature. Some say that the evolution was by insensible gra- 
dations throughout. Some say generally by insensible grada- 
tions, but admit occasional leaps have been made to bridge over 
certain chasms, such as exist between inorganic and organic 
nature, or between vegetable and animal existence, or between 
animal nature and human nature. 

III. Through an internal force influenced by external con- 
ditions. Some think that there is an inherent power or im- 
pulse towards evolution in all manifestations of force, and all 
forms of nature. 

IV. Through the processes of generation and re-produc- 
tion. 1. Prolonged development of the animal in its embry- 
onical state has given to it new characteristics. 2. Acceler- 
ated development in embryonic condition has given new char- 
acteristics. 3. lietarded or imperfect development in embry- 
onic condition has changed characteristics. 4. Extraordinary 
births of this character, or extraordinary births occasioned by 
unusual influences on mother or embryo, have produced new 
and unusual characteristics, and these have been perpetuated 
and transmitted by law of heredity. 5. Parthenogenesis. 
Some have even imagined that new characteristics or new 
species came from births where there was no impregnation, a 
sort of miraculous eflbrt of nature, a sort of self-impregnation ! 

One of the above theories, evolution by conflicts of individ- 
uals, resulting in survival of fittest or natural selection, first con- 
ceived by Mr. Wallace, but shortly after conceived and pub- 
lished by Mr. Darwin, independent of any knowledge of Mr. 
Wallace's ideas, has obtained great notoriety as Darwinism, 
Darwin's hypothesis, or Darwin's theory. As many talk 
much about it that are ignorant of it, and expose themselves 
to ridicule, and injure the cause they would defend, and as 
many things arc called Darwinism, not included by Darwin in 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PEOBLEM. 75 

his hypotliesis, we shall attempt a concise statement of this, 
now celebrated hypothesis, aS well as we can gather it from 
Darwin's writings, and the conception that others have formed 
of it. Darwin has never made a formal statement of his hy- 
pothesis. It can only be gathered in detached fragments in 
his somewhat voluminous writings. . Our statement may be 
criticised, and certain statements of Darwin quoted against 
it, for Darwin is not always consistent with his former state- 
ments; but we believe it to be in the main correct. It may 
be stated as including, 1. Certain assumptions. 2. Certain 
statements that he calls laws. 3. Certain things needed to 
render the hypothesis possible or plausible. 4. The gaps or 
failures in the hypothesis. 

I. He assumes the existence of matter. Whether self-ex- 
istent and eternal, or created, he does not say. The affini- 
ties and tendencies of his system, and the drift of his specu- 
lations are towards the self-existence of matter. 

II. He assumes the existence and activity of physical forces, 
or of the different manifestations of the one physical force. 
Whether mind antedated these forces, and created and co-or- 
dinated them, and now controls them ; or whether mind co-ex- 
isted with these forces, and acts in them and with them ; or 
whether they are self-existent and eternal, and mind merely 
a different manifestation of physical force ; or whether mind 
is evolved by physical force, he does not say. The tendencies 
of his system, and the drift of his Avritings, are towards the 
eternity and self-existence of physical forces. 

in. He assumes the existence of life as a starting point. 
He neither assumes nor denies spontaneous generation. He 
neither assumes nor denies the eternal and inherent existence 
of plastic life in matter. He neither assumes nor denies the 
evolution of life out of matter and physical force, or by means 
of them. He does not say whether he regards life merely as 
a different manifestation or a modification of physical force. 
He does not define life, nor does he, except in a vague ex- 
pression, which we will soon examine, tell us whence life comes. 
The affinities and drift of his speculations are towards an eternal 



76 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

plastic life-force in all matter, or evolution of life out of 
matter and force. 

IV. He, on rare occasions, speaks of the creation of life 
and organic matter. He does not say whether created by 
intelligence, or created by evolution by means of matter and 
force. The drift of his speculations is towards creation by 
evolution out of matter and physical force, or by means of 
them. 

V. He speaks once at least of the creation of a few pri- 
mordial germs, or of one primordial germ. He does not tell 
us whether this was an absolute, direct creation by intelli- 
gence, or whether it was a creation by intelligence through 
second causes, or an evolution by matter and force. He does 
not say whether these germs were formed out of pre-existent 
matter or not. The affinities of his system are towards an 
evolution out of pre-existent matter by mere physical force. 

VI. He assumes these germs to be susceptible of endless 
and almost infinite variations and development by conditions. 
Intelligence, or the action of intelligence, is no part of these 
conditions. He does not assign to intelligence any part in this 
evolution. In fact, he denies and ridicules the idea of intel- 
ligence having any connection with this evolution. He at- 
tempts to disprove it. 

VII. He speaks once of the inbreathing of life into these 
germs by the Creator. Whether life was inbreathed by in- 
telligence, or by physical forces, or was evolved by physical 
forces, or was merely physical force, that became life on ac- 
count of the organization into which it entered, he does not 
say. The drift of his speculations is towards mere physical 
force, modified by organization of matter, and changed into 
what we call life. The tendency of his system, as seen in 
his followers' and his own writings, is towards evolution of 
germs out of pre-existent matter by physical force, and the 
evolution of life out of physical force by orgai'iization of mat- 
ter. 

VIII. From a few primordial germs, or from one primor- 
dial germ, have been developed all varieties of animal and 
vegetable life by the influence of suitable conditions. 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 77 

IX. Organization, growth and reproduction are functions 
of all life, vegetable and animal, necessary functions. He 
does not say whence these functions came. He merely as- 
sumes them as necessary functions of life. They are the nec- 
essary functions of the primordial germs. They would, how- 
ever, merely produce germs like themselves. Darwin's hy- 
pothesis really undertakes nothing more than to account for 
the production of varieties of life. Such are the assump- 
tions necessary as a basis for Darwin's hypothesis. It wdll be 
readily seen that it leaves all the real mysteries of the great 
problem of existence untouched. It quietly ignores tliem by 
assuming their existence without one word as to their origin. 

As we have said, the real object of Darwin's hypothesis 
is to account for the origin of the species and varieties of 
vegetable and animal life. It accounts for them thus: 

1. Different conditions or circumstances surrounding differ- 
ent germs affected or influenced them differently. This Dar- 
win calls the law of different conditions. Whence these dif- 
ferent conditions came, he does not say. 2. Adaptation to 
different conditions, or the power to adapt itself to different 
conditions, existed in these germs. Whence came this won- 
derful adaptation, or wonderful power of adaptation, he does 
not say. 3. Different conditions and these adaptations, or 
power of adaptability, produced different characteristics in dif- 
ferent germs, producing new forms and new characteristics. 
4. The law of heredity, or the tendency of all life to beget 
that which is like itself, perpetuated these new characteristics. 
He does not tell us whence this law of heredity came, so op- 
posed to the fortuity of the operations of blind, irrational phys- 
ical force. 5. Law of over-production. All forms of life, 
especially the lower, increase in an enormous geometrical ratio 
in very short intervals, thus producing incalculable numbers. 
6. This over-production produces a struggle for life. 7. In 
this struggle for life only those best qualified for the struggle, 
or the fittest, could survive and perpetuate themselves. 

Such is Darwin's hypothesis, as he propounds it. In order 
to render it a working hypothesis, one that can be used in 
investigating nature, and giving a possible explanation of the 



78 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

plienoniena for which it professes to account, and this is ah 
that can be claimed for it, the following assumptions must 
also be made. Darwin and his adherents seem to have over- 
looked them, or to have built on them unconsciously: 

1. And this is a fundamental and most important thought. 
All substances must be identical or convertible in order to 
render possible the infinite and absolute variations claimed by 
Darwin. Chemistry declares they are not ; that there are over 
sixty absolutely distinct and radically different elements. 
Darwinism is in direct antagonism to this fundamental idea — 
this basis of chemistry ; and this basis idea of chemistry ren- 
ders the variations and changes claimed by Darwin an im- 
possibility. 2. These different conditions must give improve- 
ments. The changes must be all in one direction. Varia- 
tions must give better characteristics. The change must 
be from the simple towards the complex, from lower to 
higher, from useless to the useful. 3. The variation must be 
continually and infinitely in that one direction. It must be 
limitless and infinite in an upward direction. 4. Improve- 
ments must give greater capacity for the struggle for life — 
greater power to survive. 5. Or there is something in nature 
that conserves and preserves the fittest, the best, the complex, 
the higher, the most beautiful, the most useful, that always 
preserves improvements. 6 That there be produced out of 
what had no sex, an existence possessing sex. 7. That there 
be produced thus, at the same time, and in the same place, 
two of opposite sexes. 8. That whenever an improvement be 
produced by variation of conditions, there be produced at the 
same time and in the same place, two at least of opposite sexes, 
possessing this improvement, and that they unite in sexual 
union. 9. That their descendants unite thus with each other 
alone. 10. Or, that in each case, in the case of the mtro- 
duction of sex, and in the case of each improvement, vast 
numbers be produced at the same time, and that they and 
their descendants unite with those having these improvements. 
One or the other of these alternatives would have to occur 
an almost infinite number of times during the course of evo- 
lution in the case of each improvement. We can not resist 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 79 

asking liow is all this conceivable without the originating en- 
ergy, control and direction of mind. 

11. That there be given an almost infinite period of time. 

12. That there be a co-ordination, adjustment and corre- 
lation of the whole of this infinite series of variations during 
this almost infinite time to secure this continual and con- 
tinued ascent in one direction. Such are the demands of 
Darwin's hypothesis, although he and his adherents ignore or 
overlook them. If the Darwinian hypothesis be advanced to 
account for the origin of species and varieties, without the 
originating, plan, direction and control of mind, it seems to 
me that if ever the statement of a position was a sufiacient 
refutation of it, such is the case in this instance. 

Professedly Theistie Theories of Development. — There are 
those who profess to be theists that are zealous advocates of 
evolution and development. Some assume the self-existence 
of matter and force. All matter is pervaded by a plastic 
force susceptible of being molded by conditions into all the 
manifestations we now see, and into inconceivably higher 
manifestations in the indefinite future. This force attains to 
life, sensation, consciousness, instinct, and reason in organic 
nature. It attains to its highest consciousness in man. Man 
is a part of God, and God is partly embodied in man, who 
is his highest embodiment and expression. Although this 
theory denies being atheistic, and uses the term God, and the- 
istie terms, it is unadulterated atheism. Others believe in the 
self-existence of matter and force, and certain laws and prop- 
erties, and also speak of a world-soul. By some, this world- 
soul and force are made identical. In all of these theories, 
this world-soul is bound up in matter, and controlled by these 
eternal laws and properties. Some seem to conceive of this 
world-soul as controlled and compelled by these laws and 
properties of matter and force bound up in them, as vital 
force is in the vegetable. Others seem to concede to the 
world-soul the power to modify and control, to some extent, 
these principles and laws. At times they seem to regard the 
world-soul as distinct from force, and superior to it in some 
respects. At others, they seem to regard them as identical, 



80 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

or rather this world-soul is this universal force developed and 
displayed in life, sensation and intelligence. Some give to 
the universe a constitution similar in organization and a rela- 
tion analogous to what popular theology gives to the organ- 
ism of man. The world-soul, or God, sustains the same rela- 
tion to matter and force that man's spirit does to the matter 
and physical forces of his body. God is as much subject to 
the laws of self-existent matter and force as the human spirit 
is to the matter and forces of the body, and no more inde- 
pendent of them. All these theories are pantheistic, and es- 
sentially atheistic. If certain elements in them are logically 
and consistently developed, the end is atheism. All theories 
that assume the eternity and self-existence of matter and 
force, aside from mind force, are essentially atheistic. We 
can not conceive of matter and God as co-existing without 
limiting and finitiug God by matter and its properties. We 
can ndt conceive of God and matter and force aside from 
mind force or God as co-existing, without finiting and limit- 
ing God by matter and force, and the properties of matter 
and force. AVe can not conceive of God as co-existing with 
eternal resources and laws, without finiting and limiting him 
by these resources and laws, although he use and control 
these reso'irces, and act in accordance with these laws. We 
must place God antecedent to all matter, force, and law, 
bringing them into being, giving them existence, and their 
first constitution, and thus make mind the uncaused, the un- 
conditioned, the absolute, the beginning and summation of 
all existence, being, and phenomena. 

There are persons who believe that God is the only self- 
existence in the universe, and that matter and force, and their 
properties, are absolutely created by Him, who also believe in 
development and evolution. Some think that the Creator 
implanted in and stamped upon matter and force certain laws 
and principles, in accordance with which matter and force and 
these laws and principles have evolved all that exists. He 
implanted in matter and force a self-evolving energy, co-ordi- 
nated by certain laws, in accordance with which this energy 
has evolved all that exists. Some admit no direct or imme- 



THE VAEIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 81 

diate act of the Creator, except in the first constitution of 
things. Some admit, in addition to this, direct acts to bridge 
over certain chasms in existence, such as exist between inor- 
ganic and organic matter, between matter destitute of life, 
and matter pervaded by life, between vegetable and animal 
life, between animals and man. Some who believe in eternal 
and self-existent matter and force, seem to recognize the ne- 
cessity of direct acts of Creative Intelligence to bridge over 
these chasms, and the necessity of the co-existence of mind to 
co-ordinate and control matter and force and their properties 
in the first constitution of things. Some concede a full and 
direct creation of all things, but seem to think that when the 
Creator had completed creation, he left it to be governed by 
the laws and constitution he had stamped on it. He has no 
further connection with it than the watch-maker has with the 
watch after it leaves his hands. The universe is a perfect, 
self-controlling, self-regulating, perpetual motion, with which 
the author has no immediate connection. Of course all mira- 
cle, providence, and answer to prayer, are an impossibility. 
Some Christians admit answer to prayer and providence in 
Bible times, Avhen there were miracles, but deny them now as 
strenuously as the rationalist. Some admit a sort of mira- 
cle, and answer to prayer and providence, but make them a 
part of the ordinary course of nature. The tendency of all 
such theories is to remove God from all connection with his 
works, from all immediate control of them, and from all 
communion and connection with man, and to erect a barrier 
between God and the human soul, and they are atheistic in 
tendency. 

There are theists and Christians that believe in evolution 
in a modified sense, and in development. They believe in the 
creation of matter and force, and in the original constitution 
of the universe, and matter and force, by a creator. They 
accept the teachings of geology concerning the almost illimit- 
able age of the universe and the earth. They believe that at 
first the universe was a chaotic mass, and that the Creator re- 
duced it to form. Some say by natural forces and law, or 
second causes; others by direct creative power. For a long 



82 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

time it was unfitted for life in any form. After a long inter- 
val it became fitted for the lowest foi^ms of life, and these 
were produced by direct creation and adapted to surround- 
ings. Gradually the earth became unfitted for these lower 
forms, and they were removed, and by progression it became 
fitted for higher forms, and these were substituted by direct 
creation; and thus, by progressive development, has the 
world reached its present condition. They believe in devel- 
opment, but it is a development by creation ; and in evolu- 
tion, but it is an evolution of ideas and plan of a creative 
mind. Some think this development has been gradual and 
imperceptible, except by comparing vast intervals of time, 
and that the extinction of lower and the substitution of 
higher forms, has been imperceptible. Others think that 
great catastrophes have characterized the world's history, and 
have separated the times of these types of life from each 
other. Some think that all animals and plants sprang from 
on original pair of each species, and that there has been 
progress and development, in the forms and types of life cre- 
ated, as the earth progressed and conditions were fitted for 
them. Some think that in this course of creation, archetypal 
forms or ideas have controlled and determined the method 
of creation. They believe that these ideas of types and 
forms, these archetypal forms and ideas, can be traced 
through all nature, as controlling ideas. There is an ideal 
conception, and an ideal archetype, in accordance with which 
the radiata, the mollusca, the articulata, and the vertebrata 
have been created. There have been less general archetypal 
ideas that have controlled the creation of genera, and fami- 
lies, and groups. Species are variations from these arche- 
typal ideas, subordinate to and controlled by them. These 
ideal archetypes will account, it is thought, for silent mem- 
bers, and useless organs, as conformities to the ideal concep- 
tion. This theory is perfectly concurrent with a full belief of 
a full, direct creation and the Scriptures. 

Some think a few simple archetypal forms were created, 
and that conditions have varied these and produced species 
and varieties by the action of naturrJ law. These generally 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THP: PROBLEM. 83 

accept Darwin's hypothesis. Some go even so far as to say 
but one primitive gem was created, with all possibilities and 
susceptibilities of variation by conditions in accordance with 
law, implanted by the Creator. Some think that species are 
a direct creation, and that varieties alone are the result of 
difference of conditions. Such is the position of most intelli- 
gent believers of the Scriptures. Then we should be very 
c ireful to make a proper distinction between the terms de- 
velopment, evolution, progress in creation, and Darwinism. 
Development is a generic term, including all theories that 
present, as a fundamental conception, the idea of progress and 
improvement of the condition of the universe, or of the earth 
and the hfe and existence on it. It may be atheistic, with- 
out mind or plan, or theistic and controlled by mind and in 
accordance with a plan, gradually unfolded in the progress 
of the universe, earth and existences in them. It includes 
evolution as one of its methods. Evolution properly refers 
to a system of automatic development, and implies that all 
that can be developed was wrapped up in things at the be- 
ginning, and that they have been automatically created or 
self-developed. Evolution may be atheistic, recognizing only 
irrational matter and force, or theistic recognizing creation 
of matter and force, and in mind co-ordinating matter and 
force for this evolution. Development may then be by evolu- 
tion and be atheistic or theistic, or it may be by continued 
creations ; and it may recognize creative energy and provi- 
dence, and control at every step. Evolution may be applied 
also to the gradual unfolding of the plan of the creative 
mind. There may be evolution in the unfolding of the plan, 
and development in its application in creation. Darwinism 
is a part of evolution, or evolution applied to account for the 
origin of species and varieties of plants and animals. Then a 
believer in development may not be a believer in evolution, 
and a believer in evolution may not be a believer of Darwin- 
ism, and a believer in Darwinism may not be a believer in 
cosmical development. 

We have been thus careful in giving these theories, and the 
many variations, shades, and blendings of them, that no one 



84 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

may err in following our argument, and that injustice may be 
done to no one. A man may be a believer in development, 
and even of evolution in certain senses, and be a firm believer 
of the Scriptures. Indeed, a person who reads intelligently 
the first chapters of Genesis, must believe in evolution of the 
plan, in the Divine Mind, in creation, and in progress and 
development in the course of creation described there. If he 
uses his senses in observation, he must believe in develop- 
ment and progress in nature, and that species of animals and 
plants are susceptible of great and Avonderful variations. 
There may be great diiferences in opinion concerning the 
length of time of this development and progress, and concern- 
ing the extent of these variations of animals and plants. A 
person may accept the full theory of geologic epochs, and the 
almost illimitable age of the earth, and its theory of cosmical 
progress, and be a firm believer of the Scriptures, and of di- 
rect creation. Whether consistently or not, is a question 
in the minds of some; but there can be no denying the fact, 
without branding as infidels, some of the leading theologians 
of our day. A man may be a believer in development and 
evolution by successive steps, and be a believer of direct crea- 
tion and of the Scriptures. He may be a believer of creation 
by law, and through the influence of conditions, and laws and 
forms of matter and force, and be a believer in God and crea- 
tion, and in the religion of the Bible, and of the Bible in the 
main. He may not be consistent, and his theory of creation 
may be atheistic in tendency, but such a combination of views 
is possible and real. One may even believe in the eternity 
of matter and physical force and their laws and properties, 
and believe in the existence of God, and his creative energy 
and action in using them, and in the Bible. It is said that 
the poet Milton is an instance of this. A man may accept 
the hypothesis of Darwin, and be a believer of creation, 
God, revelation, and the Scriptures. He may be very incon- 
sistent, but such is undeniably the fact. 

Then a belief of evolution, Darwinism, and development is 
not necessarily atheism, or a denial of the Scriptures. There 
may be inconsistency in holding to these views at the same 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 85 

time, but such is the fact in multitudes of cases, and nothing 
is gained by denouncing such persons as infidels, or by arro- 
gantly and dogmatically denying what we have stated. A 
belief in evolution, development, progress in creation, and 
in creation by law in certain senses, is very compatible with 
a belief of the Scriptures, for they teach these ideas. If, by 
development, evolution, and progress, we mean that there 
has been an evolution of the Divine plans in creation and 
redemption, and that there has been progress and develop- 
ment in carrying out the work in both cases, it is an idea 
clearly taught in the Scriptures, and, in fact, revelation is 
based on it ; and it matters not whether the six days in Gene- 
sis be six periods or six literal days. Men accept the geologic 
theory of long time, epochs, and progress, and hold fast to 
the account in Genesis. Whether consistently or not, may 
be a question, but such is the case. If by the term " crea- 
tion by law," is meant that the Creator pursued an orderly 
process in accordance with reason and the laws of reason and 
thought, and that there was order, system and law in his 
acts and processes of creation, we can not deny its truth. Nor 
that he employed the laws and forces that he created and 
established to accomplish certain results in creation. It is in 
this sense that the Duke of Argyll uses the term in his "Reign 
of Law," in which he is so strangely misunderstood by his able 
critic. Dr. Paine, in his great work, *' Physiology of the Soul 
and Instinct." A man may believe that the Creator implanted 
in matter and force a self-evolving energy of development, 
that has produced all that we say has been created, and that 
he stamped on matter and force laws that control this energy 
and evolution, and that all things came into being in this 
way, and believe in God, creation and revelation. I will not 
say consistently, but such is the fact. One can believe that 
all species and varieties of animals and plants have been pro- 
duced, as Darwinism claims, and believe in God, creation and 
revelation. Men can believe that the Creator implanted in 
matter and force a self-evolving energy, and that he stamped 
on them certain laws that controlled the energy in this devel- 
opment, and that he has co-ordinated the conditions that 



86 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

control and determine the result of this development, and that 
all existences came into being in this way, and believe in crea- 
tion, God, and revelation. The author believes as firmly as 
any one, that these theories are atheistic, and gravitate toward 
atheism as necessarily as license does toward crime, and he 
believes that men are not consistent in believing these theories 
and retaining revelation ; but he can not deny the fact that they 
do thus accept these theories, and retain revelation. Nothing 
can be gained by denying that such is the case, and by de- 
nouncing all wlio believe in development, evolution, and Dar- 
win as of course atheists. It may gratify bigotry, but it can 
only proceed from ignorance or bigotry, and injures the cause 
such persons espouse and undertake to defend. 

Historical Development. — Based on atheistic theories 
of evolution and cosmical and physiological development, is 
the theory of Historic Development. When Darwin's hypothe- 
sis is applied to man, it includes this theory. It is assumed 
and taught in his " Descent of Man." It assumes that man 
is a development from lower animals, or from lower and ani- 
mal-like types of the genus homo, now extinct; and that he 
began in a condition of brutal instinctive animalism, or in a 
state of brutal idiotic savagery. Men at first herded together 
like animals. There was an absolute domination of appetite 
and passion as in animals, and a tyranny of the stronger. 
There was no family, no society, no government, no law, no 
conscience, no morality, no religion, no use of implements, no 
civilization. The sexes herded together, and associated to- 
gether during the period of desire, like animals, the stronger 
monopolizing the favors of the females. After awhile, they 
began to retain for themselves their favorites. These favor- 
ites began to retain for a longer period their young. Thus 
arose the family with polygamy (or the stronger males retain- 
ing several females), or in some cases polyandry (one female 
monopolizing several males). Then a higher organization of 
the family, and at last monogamy, and finally we are to end 
in free love. Such is the origin and development of the fam- 
ily and marriage relation. Men herded like animals at first, 
then separated into families. These grew into tribes, and 



THE VARIOUS SOLUTIONS OF THE PROBLEM. 87 

tribes into nations. Or by conquest of weaker tribes or fami- 
lies, all were consolidated into nations. 

There was at first a tyranny of the stronger over the weak, 
under the domination of appetite, passion, and selfishness. 
Then aflfection modified this tyranny in the family. Then 
policy or necessity modified it further in the tribe or nation. 
Then came government, despotic at first, and then despotism 
modified by custom, law, and constitution. Then greater free- 
dom, and at last republicanism and democracy. Man was at 
first controlled by passion and selfishness. Then affection 
modified the action of passion and selfishness. Then there 
was an animal-like recognition of rights of persons and prop- 
erty, because deprivation caused pain. Then rational recog- 
nition of rights of persons and property. Then conscience, 
morality, duty, and obligation. There was at first use of 
bodily organs in appropriating food and slaying for food 
animals, and the use of spontaneous productions of the earth, 
like animals. Then use of clubs to knock ofl^ fruits, or to kill 
animals, or of stones to smash nuts, bones, or shells. Then 
shaping of clubs, and wood and stones into implements. Then 
the use of softer metals, and the formation of better imple- 
ments and machines. Then the use of harder metals, until 
our present arts and machinery was reached. Man was at first 
without shelter. Then under trees or in forests and hollow 
trees, or in caves. Then booths, huts, rude hovels of wood 
and stone. Then better dwellings and architecture. At first, 
man was unclad, then used leaves and skins of slaughtered 
animals. Then prepared skins and rude garments. Then 
learned to use wool, silk, linen, cotton, and elaborate garments. 
He began in brutality and passed through savagery, barbar- 
ism, and civilization into enlightenment. He began in a dread 
of all that injured him, or a liking for all that benefited him ; 
thus deepened into awe, veneration and superstition. He 
gave gifts to propitiate Avhat injured, and ofl?erings of grati- 
tude to what benefited. He gave gifts and sacrifices to pro- 
pitiate and secure the aid of these superior beings, as te 
regarded them, and thus grew up systems of religion. He at 
first had superstitious regard for all that benefited or injured 



88 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

him. He soon made these objects of worship intelligences, 
and worshiped many intelligences, or became a polytheist. 
Then the unity of the system of the universe suggested the 
control of one intelligence, and he passed into monotheism in 
Mosaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. He will at last 
pass into atheism. A favored few have reached that sublime 
goal now. Such is Historical Development. 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 89 



CHAPTER IV. 

Tendencies of Development, Evolution and Darwinism. 

In our last chapter we gave the reader an outline of the 
various theories of development. In the present chapter we 
propose to inquire concerning the affinities and tendencies of 
these theories. When a new theory is presented, we naturally 
inquire: 1. What are the facts in the case? 2. Do they 
sustain the theory? 3. Is the theory true? 4. What will 
be the consequences of the theory ? The last query is called 
the practical consideration or argument, and often determines 
with most minds the query, " Is the theory true ? " Although 
a logical development of our argument w^ould require that 
we now inquire, " Do the facts sustain these theories we have 
described ? " yet that we may better understand them, and 
be the better prepared to examine them, we will pause to 
inquire, "What are the tendencies of these speculations?" 
liight here there is a warm conflict between the physicist and 
religionist. The theologian is continually urging the conse- 
quences of the speculations of the physicist, and the physicist, 
in turn, objecting that he has no right to do so. Formerly, 
when the theologian claimed the right to settle, by his as- 
sumptions and dogmas, all questions of science in every 
department, and all questions in every department of thought 
as well as religion and morals, the physicist was a continual 
source of annoyance to the theologian in his theorizings and 
speculations, by persistently and continually presenting facts 
and truths contradicting them, and also by urging the absurd 
consequences of such speculations. 

The theologian always tried to silence the physicist and 

crush out his objection by claiming that his speculations should 

bo free from the criticisms of the physicist because they were 

above his province, and above all criticism by him. But now 

8 



90 THE PEOBLEM OF PFwOBLEMS 

the tables are turned. The physicist has established the par- 
amount authority of his methods and deductions in the field 
of science, and has driven the metaphysical speculations of 
the theologian out of the field of science, except as they are 
used as instruments of investigation. Elated with his victory, 
he now attempts to assume the role played by the theologian 
in former days. He assumes that he is sole authority in his 
own department, and that his notions there should be un- 
questioned, and will not allow the theologian to question or 
even criticise his speculations and assumptions. He even 
assumes to enter the field of rational thought and morals and 
religion, and to decide, with the authority of a dictator, the 
most important and fundamental questions in them. 

As the theologian once demanded that the physicist should 
accept his dicta unquestioned, even in his own department, 
so now the physicist demands that the theologian accept his 
decisions unquestioned, not only in the field of science, but 
also in the theologian^s own field of metaphysics, morals, and 
religion. And now the theologian troubles the physicist. 
The physicist uses surmises and hypotheses as an approxima- 
tion to the truth and as a means of reaching it. Within 
proper limits, such a course is legitimate. Some of the 
noblest achievements of physical science have been reached 
by this method. So long as these hypotheses are presented 
as guesses, and we are only asked to treat them as guesses, 
no one will complain ; but when they are presented as estab- 
lished truth, and we are asked to unship the thought of the 
luiman mind, since the first intuition dawned on the first 
mind, and to make a mere guess, the basis and controlling 
idea of all thought, we have a right to ask, at least, " Is it 
possible, or probable," before we do so. And this, to the 
great annoyance of the physicist, the theologian insists on 
doing. 

When the physicist has built up a theory on hypothesis and 
speculation, he often becomes infatuated with it, and demands 
that all accept it as established truth, and is amazed at, and 
enraged by, the theologian, who with unreasonable obstinacy, 
as it seems to him, enamored as he is by the creature of his 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION AND DAEWINISM. 91 

brain, refuses to cast to one side cherished truth for mere 
speculation based on a guess. 

Now, as the physicist was in former days justified in re- 
fusing to give up well established convictions at the beck of 
the theologian, and was justified in pointing out absurdities 
and contradictions, and fallacies in the speculations of the 
theologian; so the theologian is justified in rejecting the 
speculations and guesses of the physicist, especially since, as 
is often the case, they contradict the clearest declarations of 
our highest nature. The theologian is peculiarly qualified for 
this work, by his metaphysical and theological studies, espe- 
cially when the physicist wanders over into his own field. It 
troubles the physicist to see his hobbies treated in this way. 
It shocks his bigotry and prejudices, just as the physicist once 
shocked the bigotry of the fanatic and religious enthusiast. 
It is human nature in its infirmity in each case, and one is as 
bigoted and unreasonable as the other. The physicist is the 
most excessively credulous and bigoted being on earth when 
pressed with the difl^iculties of his department. 

Huxley can assume that we will yet see life emerge from 
dead matter, or be able to prove that it once did. He can 
assume this, in the face of all experience and sense, because 
the necessities of his theories demand it. 

Tyndall can give to matter all the attributes of spirit and 
even divinity. 

Kolliker can believe in births without impregnation, or in 
self-impregnation, and any assumption that the necessities of 
the theory may demand can be made with a faith that far 
exceeds the pious rant of the religious enthusiast, who cried, 
"I believe it, because it is impossible." We shall see before 
we are done, that the assumptions and absurdities of Hindoo 
mythology are eclipsed by the physicist, who calls himself, 
'par excellence, a scientific person, and such stuflP philosophy 
and science. 

The physicist particularly objects to the theologians con- 
tinually urging the consequences of his theories, and there 
may be force in the objection. There is a superstitious 
bigotry that is always alarmed lest something i.ew should 



92 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

disturb its old notions. Theologians should be certain that 
what they urge as the consequences are really the consequen- 
ces of the theory. Above all, they should be certain that 
theory, or its consequences are opposed to established truth, 
rational, moral, or religious truth. It may be possible that 
they do not understand the theory, or that they are mistaken 
as to its logical consequences ; and, above all, that they may 
be mistaken as to what constitutes rational, moral, and relig- 
ious truth. They are very apt to mistake their own opinions 
and dogmas for moral and religious truth, when they are 
utterly opposed to it. It is in this way that all opposition 
to science has arisen in the religious world. Religious truth, 
and religion in its proper meaning, and the Scriptures, and 
Christianity, never had one particle of opposition to a single 
truth of science, and have not now. 

Absurd dogmas of bigots and sectaries have been elevated 
to the throne belonging to religious and scriptural truth and 
Christianity. Science has stripped the wolf of the shepherd's 
clothing, and the usurper has persecuted science. I challenge 
skepticism to point to one precept of Christianity that sanc- 
tions persecution of any one for opinion's sake. In this way 
science has rendered great service to religion, in dethroning 
and overturning absurd religious dogmas, that have buried 
and obscured divine truth. A theory may be opposed to the- 
ological dogmas, and be in accordance with rational, moral, 
and religious truth. 

On the other hand, the physicist must allow us to inquire 
concerning the consequences of his doctrines or theories, and 
we shall do so, whether he Avill or no. We are sometimes 
told, " We do not care for the consequences, provided the 
theory be true." There must be a limit to such an assertion. 
If the inevitable consequences of a theory be absurd or con- 
tradict well established truth, no matter of what kind, it can 
not be true. All truth is consistent, and nothing can be true 
in science that contradicts well established rational, moral, or 
religious truth. When urged, in reply, to a clear showing that 
the consequences of a scientific theory contradict some well 
established and undeniable religious or moral truth, the 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 93 

above declaration of the physicist has as bald fanaticism in it 
as there ever was in any utterance of a religious bigot. If 
the consequences are clearly shown to be absurd or contra- 
dictory of well established truth, no matter of what kind, the 
falsity of the theory is as clearly established as that two 
straight lines can not enclose a space. 

We are often told, now, that the religious world should at- 
tend to its own affairs, and not interfere with matters of 
science. There might be some propriety in such a declara- 
tion if the ones making it were careful to observe their own 
rule, and if the physicist were careful to confine himself to 
the scientific field. But now, when the physicist presumes to 
decide the gravest problems of morality and religion, and to 
sneer at the clearest intuitions of our moral and religious 
nature, and scout them, such a caveat issued against the the- 
ologians examining the speculations of the physicist is an in- 
sult to sense and justice. Now, when lectures and publica- 
tions on scientific topics are continually assaulting every re- 
ligious sentiment, and when scientific associations and their 
anniversaries are used, on account of the eclat that the occa- 
sion will give to the speaker and his declarations by the prin- 
cipal officers of such associations, to flaunt in the face of the 
religious world the baldest infidelity, and to scout the funda- 
mental truths of religion, self-defense will justify the religious 
world in repelling such an unprovoked and uncalled-for as- 
sault. If it did not, then it would be taunted witli coward- 
ice, and with knowing that it could not reply, and such silence 
would be construed into a confession of the falsity of religion. 
Now when the assault is repelled, and the marauder chas- 
tized, a cry of persecution is raised. Huxley and Tyndall 
have been in the habit of using their scientific lectures and 
anniversary addresses as occasions and means of throwing out 
innuendos and making attacks on religion, taking refuge be- 
hind the protection the world has thrown around science, pre- 
venting the theologian from assuming too much authority in 
its peculiar domain. They have used this protection as a 
means of carrying on an offensive, aggressive war against re- 
ligion, and when theologians defend themselves they have 



94 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

taken refuge behind this rampart, and claimed its protectioi]. 
while continuing the war and fighting the persons they havb 
assailed, even while raising cries that this protection must be 
respected and their domain must not be invaded, and in such 
cries for respect to their rights. Such a course is as honor- 
able as bushwhacking and guerrilla warfare under the protec- 
tion of a treaty of peace, or marching into the territory of a 
friendly power under a flag of truce, and taking prisoners 
those who respected its sacredness. Common sense will jus- 
tify the religious world in entering the enclosure used in so 
cowardly and perfidious a manner, and spiking its guns, or 
turning them on such unprovoked and treacherous assailants. 
Tyndall in his prayer test, and in his Belfast speech, ventured 
on a marauding excursion into the territory of the religious 
world beyond his protection, and the religious world have 
taken the marauder in hands and chastized him, and handed 
him back to his disciples a sadder, and it is to be hoped a 
wiser and better man. 

We should respect the premises of another, but when Ave 
know he is erecting works and using his premises as a means 
to drive us out of ours, it would be folly to respect his prem- 
ises then. The rights are mutual, and the obligation is mu- 
tual. Let physicists respect the rights and field of thought 
of the theologian, and remember that theologians have some 
rights that scientists are bound to respect. It would be folly 
to extend to the physicist the exemption he claims, since he 
is not only persistently erecting works to drive the theologian 
out of his own field, but he is continually and aggressively 
making the attempt. It is cowardly for the physicist to keep 
up this marauding war, and keep clamoring "Respect my 
territory! Don't attack me!" Again, since the physicist 
furnishes to the infidel nearly all his weapons in the deadly 
conflict waging between irreligion and religion, the theologian 
is warranted in treating as an enemy one who furnishes w^eap- 
ons, fighting ground and refuge to his enemy. He is justi- 
fied in testing and destroying the weapons wielded against 
him, especially when in the conflict. It matters not what 
theory, nor from what quarter it came, that is wielded in an 



EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 95 

assault on religion, the theologian is justified in destroying it. 
But the theologian has as much at stake in the scientific field 
as the physicist, and as much right to work in it. The phys- 
icist, if religion be a reality and a truth, is concerned in the 
theological field of thought, and his priceless interests are at 
stake in the use that the religious world make of religion. 
As the physicist is vitally concerned in the religious teachings 
and influence of the theologian, so the theologian is vitally 
concerned in the results of the speculations of the physicist. 
All these departments of truth overlap each other, and are 
inseparably and vitally connected. Neither party can erect 
a Chinese wall of exclusion of the other, and the enclosure 
of itself alone. All truth is but part of one interwoven, 
vitally connected, and mutually dependent whole. The the- 
ologian has an undoubted right to criticize the physicist, and 
the physicist has an undoubted right to criticize the work of 
the theologian. The theologian has an undoubted right to 
enter the scientific field and prosecute all inquiry, and make 
all investigation and all criticism he can make. So has the 
physicist the same right in the religious and theological field. 
The physicist can only demand that the theologian, when in 
the scientific field, accept and submit to the authority of es- 
tablished truths of science, and that he use scientific methods 
and conform to the fundamental canons of science. The the- 
ologian, on the other hand, should insist that the physicist, 
when he enters the field of rational, moral or religious 
thought, accept and submit to the established truths of these 
fields, and that he use their methods, and conform to their fun- 
damental canons and principles. Real science demands such 
a course. 

We can not establish the truth or falsity of a scientific 
theory or statement by an appeal to moral and religious 
nature, nor by an appeal to moral and religious truth alone. 
The physicist should remember, also, that we can not estab- 
lish moral and religious statements, nor decide moral or re- 
ligious questions by an appeal to scientific data alone. Each de- 
partment of truth has its own data, class of truths, rules of 
decision, and tests of truth. But all truth must be harmoni- 



96 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ous and consistent. No religious dogma can be true, or should 
be held for one moment, that contradicts one well established 
truth of science. This the physicist will most readily accept. 
But it is just as true that no scientific statement or theory can 
be true that contradicts our moral or religious nature, or its 
intuitions, or one moral or religious truth. This the physi- 
cist is not so willing to admit, but will ignore, contradict, and 
sneeringly deny the clearest intuitions of our moral and re- 
ligious nature where they run counter to his speculations. 
Again, we assert that the rights and obligations of theology 
and physical science are mutual, and one as imperative and 
binding as the other. We have an undoubted right to inquire 
into the consequences and tendencies of the speculations of 
the physicist. Nay, it is our imperative duty to do so ; and 
we are cowards and traitors to ourselves, to our fellow-men, 
and to God, if we do not do so. We can not separate physi- 
cal science, literature, and moral and religious thought. Each 
has a vital connection with, and a most important bearing on, 
each of the other fields of thought. We can and must ask 
whether a theory accord with established truths and princi- 
ples in other departments of truth. In no other way can we 
use all means of testing a statement or theory. 

We object to the modern attempt to ignore our moral and 
religious nature, when investigating physical nature. We 
might as well attempt to give a person a knowledge of math- 
ematics, by means of answers to problems, or teaching me- 
chanical manipulation of figures and symbols, ignoring all the 
time all the theoretical part of mathematics. It is mockery to 
call a description of mere physical nature, a description of all 
nature. We might as well attempt to learn all about a liv- 
ing man from a corpse, or call a' treatise on anatomy a full de- 
scription of man. We object to the arrogant attempt to con- 
fine the terms science, knowledge, practical science, practical 
knoivledge, to a mere classification of the phenomena of phys- 
ical nature, a collection of the phenomena of physical nature 
into bundles, and labeling them, and laying on the shelves 
of these system.s of speculation. Our minds, our spiritual 
nature, the phenomena of our rational, moral, and religious 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION, AND DARWINISM. 97 

nature, and their intuitions and laws are the highest part of 
nature, and are as clearly established as the phenomena of 
physical nature, and, indeed, far more so, for they are nearer 
to us, and are the means by which the facts of physical science 
are established. They are the basis of our investigations in 
physical science, our means of investigation, and our regula- 
tive guide and test in so doing. They are the highest, the no- 
blest part of nature, the regnant element of all nature. The 
self-styled scientist of to-day is narrow, one-sided, and bigoted. 
By what right does he refuse to investigate the highest part 
of nature, the regnant element of our nature? On what 
ground does he reject its clearest decisions, and sneer at 
moral and religious nature and truths ? By what right does 
he call his field of investigation real science, practical science 
useful instruction, and reject the highest intuitions of our 
spiritual nature ? We have a notable instance of this in Hux- 
ley's approving quotation of Hume's narrow-minded and big- 
oted condemnation of all those works which he calls metaphys- 
ical. All works on mental and religious themes, and by im- 
plication, poetry, literature, and every thing except what per- 
tains to physical science, would, by Hume and his disciple 
Huxley, be committed to the flames as useless. We have, 
in history, but one parallel case of narrow-minded, igno- 
rant bigotry. The Arabian barbarian who burned the Alex- 
andrian library reasoned in the same way: "If it contains 
any thing that is not in the Koran," said this bigot, "it is 
false, and should be burned. If it contains what is in the 
Koran, it is useless, and should be burned. Burn it, anyhow." 
So says the bigot Huxley, "If these books on religion, mor- 
als, mental science, and metaphysics, contain what is not in 
physical science, they are useless, and should be burned. If 
they contradict our speculations that we call science or phys- 
ical science, as we teach, they are false, and should be 
burned!" There is as much ignorance and bigotry in one 
case as in the other. Unfortunately for the world the Ara- 
bian bigot could gratify his bigotry and plunge the world in 
night. Fortunately our English bigot can not extinguish the 
spiritual sun of the earth, that the rush-light of his specula- 
9 



98 THE PIIOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

tions remain the only source of light and life. Mere physical 
investigations are science and practical knowledge, but the in- 
vestigation of tlie phenomena of mind — the sublime reason- 
ings of a Plato, a Socrates, a Solomon, an Augustine, and a 
Butler — are worthless folly. The speculations and hypotheses 
of a Darwin or a Huxley are science. Investigation of the 
minutise of physical nature are science, but investigation of 
man's mental and religious nature are not. Investigations of 
the tail of a bird, the wing of a bat, the rings of an insect, 
or the sexual gyrations of amorously inclined insects, are 
"science" and "practical knowledge." Heaven save the 
mark! but a consideration of the aspirations, the hopes, the 
reasonings, and phenomena of our spirits is worthless, and 
should be committed to the flames. 

With what claim to consistency can the physicist pretend 
to take human nature and reason as his standard, and reject 
the universal aspirations of man's highest nature, the universal 
affirmations of reason, and the regnant element of man's na- 
ture? On what ground can he claim to investigate nature 
and refuse to investigate the highest and most important de- 
partment of nature. As Avell might a man pretend to de- 
scribe a country, and leave out its people and their history and 
their achievements, merely describing the soil and geology of 
the country. Then the physicist is inconsistent, unphilosoph- 
ical, unscientific, and bigoted. He refuses to recognize the 
only means of investigation, and to investigate them and learn 
their use. There is an arrogance also in the attitude of the 
physicist. We must not even venture to inquire whether the 
data on which they build their speculations be true, but we 
must accept them unquestioned; for are not they scientific 
men, and don't they know? No priest was ever more arro- 
gant and dictatorial. We must not doubt their speculations, 
nor challenge the assumptions on which they base them, or 
we are abused as ignorant and bigoted, because we refuse to 
ignore the universal intuitions of the highest part of nature, 
when they conflict with these speculations and guesses of these 
physicists. No one nuist speak on these topics but physicists. 
Theologians especially must be mute, although the physi- 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION, AND DARWINISM. 99 

cist will dogmatically decide the gravest problems in morals 
and religion, and wander out of his path to do so. He can use 
his field of speculation as a means of driving the theologian 
out of his own premises, furnish weapons to the enemies of re- 
ligion, and wage a ceaseless war on religion himself; but the 
theologian must say nothing on science. We must accept the 
dictum of these men, their data, and their deductions, from 
them unquestioned, even when acknowledged to be a mere hy- 
pothesis, as is the case with Darwinism. 

Now, as a freeman, although I am a priest, I dare to assert 
our freedom, and that priests have as good a right to investi- 
gate physical phenomena as any one, and are as competent to 
do so, and can do it as thoroughly. They can examine the 
data and speculations of the physicist. A large portion of 
them are educated men. They possess educated and disci- 
plined minds, and in college acquired just the same elemen- 
tary knowledge of every science that the physicist did. They 
begin life with an equal chance with the physicist. They can 
investigate physical science as well as men engaged in medi- 
cine, law, or teaching, as is the case with many of these men. 
Many of the grandest discoveries in all departments of scien" 
tific research have been made by these priests. Many of 
them are masters of these physicists in their own departments. 
Think a cliemist discarding a Priestley, or a geologist a 
Dawson, a Hitchcock, a Buckland, a Sedgwick or a Smith, 
because they were priests! 

Even if this were not the case, men of common sense can 
decide whether a theory be in accordance with established 
facts, understood and admitted by all, or not; whether the 
data be proved or not; whether facts establish the theory or 
not. Especially they can compare the conflicting statements 
and data and reasonings of physicists, and decide between 
them. They must do so. They do so in medicine, law, and 
theology. The physicist does this himself. So can all men, 
and so can priests. Again, there is a wide difference between 
a scientist giving facts in science, and his speculations concern- 
ing their origin, and especially his ideas concerning their ap- 
plication in other fields of thought. We can accept Darwin's 



100 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

facts, and reject his guesses and speculations. He may be 
vastly our superior in knowledge of facts, and we his peers in 
speculations on them. Again, the theologian can be a much 
better judge of the application of the facts of physical 
science in theology, than the scientific man. Then we will ac- 
cept Darwin and Huxley as authority in the facts of their de- 
partments and in matters where they are competent authority ; 
but reject them as theologians, and criticise their speculations 
and metaphysics, for their speculations and metaphysics are 
of a very poor class. The very worst and most abstract of 
metaphysics are resorted to to construe the facts of physical 
science against religion. Metaphysics are used to destroy 
religion, and to destroy metaphysics, by the men who con- 
demn them, and use the worst of metaphysics in condemning 
them. We say, then, to physicists, that we are not machines 
or serfs, but "we be freemen, and we were born so," and shall 
investigate and criticise and expose all that will not stand 
the test of truth. Since theologians recognize the reality and 
phenomena of the physical world and its laws, and accept 
them and are controlled by them in their investigations of 
the phenomena of the physical world, they certainly have an 
undoubted right to investigate the physical world. If physi- 
cists, who ignore the moral and religious world, and refuse to 
investigate it, or to accept or recognize its phenomena or 
great truths, or be controlled by its laws and methods of in- 
vestigations, or canons of testimony, or testing truth, can 
pronounce on the most sacred and profound questions of 
morals and religion ; why can not theologians enter the phys- 
ical world, and use its methods, and pronounce on its ques- 
tions? If physicists can set to one side all moral and relig- 
ious intuitions of God, creation, providence, divine govern- 
ment, prayer, religion and woiship, in a department which 
they despise, because they are ignorant of it — of which they 
are ignorant because they refuse to investigate it, or recog- 
nize its reality — why can not theologians be allowed to enter 
the field of the physicist, and, by his own methods and laws, 
set to one side his speculation and guesses, and his applica- 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION, AND DARWINISM. lOl 

tion of them to theology, and his blunders through ignorance 
in such applications? 

Physicists are continually raising a clamor about persecu- 
tion when their marauding into the theological field is chas- 
tized. No one persecutes them, but they claim the privilege 
of repelling their assaults on themselves, and of criticising 
such assaults. Before we will give up cherished truth, for 
the guesses of the physicist, we will at least venture to ask, 
*'By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave 
thee this^authority?" Physicists ridicule the narrow-minded- 
ness, mistakes, and blunders of theologians. There are two 
sides to that question. Tyndall, Darwin, and Huxley are 
specialists, and ignorant outside of their departments. They 
are minute specialists in their own fields. They can not rise 
to general views, even in their own fields. They reject the 
great catholic idea that will enable them to do so. The real 
ends of all science, the efficient cause and final cause, they 
deny. Their method threatens the death of all true science, 
and all elevating scientific thought. All they and their dis- 
ciples do, is to observe minute phenomena in time-succes- 
sion, and collect them into bundles and label them. All 
ideas and purposes of broad generalizations and real scientific 
ends are ignored. Tyndall took, second-handed, from Draper 
what he presented in the historic part of his Belfast speech, 
and made gross blunders in every statement. He made 
blunders that would have subjected a student in a theological 
school to the ridicule of his class-mates. In every speech of 
these men, when they enter the theological and metaphysical 
field, they make mistakes that would subject a college student 
to a reprimand from his teacher. A philosophy that assumes 
that possibly two and two might be five, or that an infinite 
number of straight lines can constitute a finite surface; a phi- 
losophy that makes the sublime devotion that leads a mother 
to sacrifice herself for her child, spring from the same source 
as the pleasure of drinking wine, that finds the origin of re- 
ligion in dread of hunger, and of conscience in a full stomach; 
that denies all causation in nature, all design in nature, or 
that design implies intelligence, or that we can learn of the 



102 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

character of the author of nature by his acts, and prates of a 
^vonderful chemistry that transmutes a cabbage into a divine 
tragedy of Hamlet, ought to be very careful about ridiculing 
any set of preachers or theologians. 

If bigotry is spoken of, was there ever greater bigotry than 
that of Huxley, that would burn all theological and metaphys- 
ical works, or of Fiske, a mere smatterer in science, that 
says of Agassiz, the prince of naturalists : " He is no more 
qualified than a child for the investigation of evolution. He 
uses sonorous phrases, empty phrases, dark metaphysical 
phrases, phrases concealing a thoroughly idiotic absence of 
thought and significance ! " Is such abuse as this the lessons 
in charity and courtesy, and scientific mode of discussion that 
physicists are to furnish to theologians ? And, finally, we are 
told that this greatest of naturalists, who had forgotten more 
about natural science than this smatterer knew, although he 
had an almost miraculous memory, did not exhibit in all his 
writings the slighest acquaintance with the development 
theory. Again, he tells us, so absolutely does he believe this 
hypothesis, this mere guess, this unproved speculation, that 
his mind is utterly unable to form sufi[icient conception of the 
opposite position to be able to frame a proposition expressing 
the opposite position. Will not this match the fanaticism of 
the bigot who cried, " I believe it, because it is impossible!" 

Huxley tells that demolished theologians lie around the 
cradle of every science, like strangled snakes around the cradle 
of the infant Hercules. We retort, that during the last fifty 
years demolished skeptical scientists, with crushed heads, lie 
strewn along the path of theology who have experienced the 
fate that the man Hercules dealt out to the hydra, whose 
hundred heads resembled the many phases of modern skepti- 
cism. Unless scientists can show a better spirit, let them 
cease to lecture theologians on the sins of theologians of for- 
mer days. But have not scientists persecuted and assailed 
each other ? What shall we say of the attacks of Tycho 
Brahe on Copernicus ? or of the scientists of his day on 
Galileo ? It is a notorious fact that much of the persecution 
he suffered came from scientists and not from priests ? Har- 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOf.UTION AND DARWINISM. 103 

vey was persecuted by scientific men of his day, and not by 
priests alone. Indeed, it was from the former that he encoun- 
tered greatest opposition. Indeed, the history of science is 
full of the jealousies, persecutions, and quarrels of scientific 
men. We would advise Dr. Draper to write a supplement to 
his history of the " Conflict between Science and Eeligion," 
in which he details the conflicts between science and science. 
We would also advise him to revise his last work, and make 
it what it is not, a truthful history. It is based on a false- 
hood, and its conclusions are false. Christianity did not op- 
pose science, nor do the Scriptures. An ecclesiasticism that 
refused the Bible to men opposed science, and this is charged 
on Christianity and the Bible. All this is on a par with the 
honesty which disparages Christianity, and apologizes for and 
lauds Paganism, Mohammedanism, and all antagonistic sys- 
tems. 

Again, we are very gravely told that theologians should not 
speak or write on the religious bearings of these speculations 
of physicists, because they Avill be biased and interested in their 
investigations and decisions. This work must be done by men 
who have no bias in favor of theology. According to this 
profound philosophy, married men should not write upon or 
in defense of marriage, because they are interested and will be 
biased ! Only bachelors or monks, opposed to marriage, should 
do so ! Loyal men should not try traitors, law-abiding men 
should not try criminals ; traitors and criminals should do this. 
We can not allow infidels and skeptics to settle these questions 
for us ; nor can we allow the indifferent. These are cases 
w-here indifference is a crime, and not to have a basis in favor 
of certain things is a crime, and utterly disqualifies one for 
deciding these questions. It is absurd to say a man must 
have no bias on these questions. As well say a man must 
have no bias in favor of loyalty, chastity, and honesty in or- 
der to be qualified to investigate treason, lewdness, and crime. 
Such a lack of bias would itself be a crime, and utterly unfit 
him for investigation. We must also consider the consequen- 
ces of a system. If a man's theories are, in consequence, 
treasonable and criminal, if treason and crime are their legit- 



104 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

imate results, we must consider their consequences in investi- 
gating and deciding concerning the system. It would l)e 
criminal and madness not to do so. Then the very ignorance 
of theology claimed for these physicists utterly unfits them 
to render the decisions they have assumed to make. Their 
freedom from theological bias and knowledge that they claim, 
renders them utterly unfit for deciding questions of religion 
and morality. Lack of care or feeling would utterly disqual- 
ify them. Such lack of care or such ignorance would be 
criminal, and utterly disqualify them for what they have been 
assuming the right to do. But such claims of lack of feel- 
ing and bias are dishonest and hypocritical. There is intense 
feeling and bias, but it is on the wrong side of the question. 
There is a deep-seated hatred of religion and all religious 
truths, or else why do they step so entirely out of their way 
to sneer at and stab religion ? It would be madness and crim- 
inal to trust such investigators — to trust the careless, the ig- 
norant, or the hostile in such questions. Again, we can not, 
and should not, feel indifferent in such discussions. As well 
talk to a parent not to feel indignant in a matter in which the 
chastity of a daughter was at stake, or the virtue and moral- 
ity of his children was imperiled. Say to him, " You must 
not feel indignant or excited ! Let the indifferent or lewd ex- 
periment on your children, and view it with the eye of a 
philosopher, as a mere question of science ! ! " 

Then the indifference or freedom from bias claimed for 
these men is false and hypocritical. It is impossible for us to 
have this indifference, and would be criminal were it possi- 
ble. So would the refusal to look at the consequences of 
these speculations, or a refusal to investigate carefully the 
consequences in a moral and religious point of view. We 
have a right, the highest right, to inquire into these theories 
of Evolution, Development and Darwinism, and to inquire 
into the consequences of these speculations, and it is our 
highest duty to do so. It would be madness and a crime if 
we did not. We can not allow the gravest questions of our 
moral and religious nature to be investigated and experi- 
mented upon by the indifferent or hostile as mere matters 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION AND DAEWINISM. 105 

of science, any more than we can allow treason and crime to 
flourish as experiments, or allow virtue and morality to be 
made mere matters of what is called scientific experiment and 
speculation. If these speculations contradict the moral and 
religious intuitions of our nature, we must reject and oppose 
them. We should and must speak in denunciation of them. 
The censure of Dr. Hodge by one of his critics, because he 
spoke in denunciation of certain tendencies of Darwinism, was 
as ill-timed as censure of a loyal, virtuous man for indignation 
and denunciation of treason and crime. Let us, then, inquire 
what are the tendencies of these theories of development and 
Darwinism, and especially what are their tendencies in morals 
and religion. We can accept the facts of Darwin's writings 
and reject their speculations, and we can accept him as au- 
thority in matters of fact in science, and reject him and Tyn- 
dall and Huxley and all of his class, when they leave their 
field and play the role of theologians. We can accept the de- 
cision of Philip sober, while we reject Philip drunk. We 
can accept the naturalist when he speaks as a naturalist, and 
reject the naturalist when he attempts to play the theologian, 
for theology can no more be settled by his methods than we 
can test moral quality in a crucible. The atheistic theories 
of evolution and development, those that are assuredly athe- 
istic, we can dismiss at once, for their atheism and hosti],ity to 
religion is avowed. So we can dismiss all theories which rec- 
ognize only matter and force, and physical causes resident in 
them. All theories that attempt to account for all existence 
without any recognition of God or an Intelligent Cause are 
atheistic. So are all theories that remove out of the mind 
all idea of control, providence, and government by a personal 
God. Pantheistic theories of development, and certain pro- 
fessedly theistic theories of development, are open to the same 
objection. 

But perhaps no better subject of such criticism coiiJd be 
chosen than Darwin's hypothesis. What are the tendenciea 
of Darwinism? We can learn these: 

I. From the writings of Darwin. 



106 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

II. From tlie utterances of its principal adherents. A man 
is known by the company he keeps. 

III. By the use tliat is made of the system. 

What, then, are the tendencies of Darwinism in regard to 
the theistic argument, and religious and moral ideas? Its in- 
fluence on morals we will reserve to another j)lace. The vari- 
ous theistic arguments are the ontological, conmological, teleo- 
logical, ethical and intuitional. The principal argument is 
the teleological. It furnishes the occasions to the intuitional 
to evolve its great intuitions, that are the foundation of all 
arguments, and makes the ideas of the other arguments ideas 
of an intelligence. The teleological argument is based on 
the evidences of order, arrangement, adaptation, co-ordination, 
adjustment, design, plan, law, method, system, prevision and 
provision, seen in nature. Some theists have lately rejected 
the teleological argument. They have acted hastily and un- 
wisely, for they have abandoned the only ground that sug- 
gests and gives validity to all arguments; and if this argu- 
ment be not valid, then reasoning is an impossibility. The 
tendency of Darwinism is especially manifest in its bearings 
on the idea of teleology in nature. This is indicated in his 
use of the word " natural." In his speculations, it means: 

J. Opposed to what is produced by man, or what is artifi- 
cial. 

II. Opposed to what is produced by intelligence. 

III. Opposed to every thing not produced by purely phys- 
ical causes. Plienomena produced by purely physical causes 
are natural, and they alone are natural. 

This utterly excludes from nature all idea of God as cre- 
ator, ruler, and providence. Of course all idea of teleology is 
excluded. Nature could have in it no teleology. Any thing 
teleological would not be natural, but artificial, or at least 
foreign to nature. 

Darwinism is, in every phase of it, a most determined foe 
of the very idea of teleology. It refuses to inquire into, in- 
vestigate or account for, the origin of matter, force, or life. 
It refuses to inquire into, investigate or account for the co-ordi- 
nation, adjustment and adaptation of matter and its proper- 



DEVELOPMENT^ EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 107 

lies, force and its properties. It refuses to inquire into, in- 
vestigate and account for its primordial germ, or the condi- 
tions surrounding such germs, or their adaptation to condi- 
tions, or power of adapting themselves to conditions. It 
refuses to inquire into and account for the properties of re- 
production, growth and organization it ascribes to life. It 
assumes that conditions produce all variations, species and 
orders out of primordial germs, and refuses to inquire into the 
origin or account for these wonderful conditions. It assumes 
that all these variations will be in one diiection, from simple 
to complex, from low^er to higher, from useless to useful. It 
assumes that conditions produce improvements always. It 
assumes that improved characteristics fit for struggle for life, 
or that nature preserves the higher, the complex, the useful. 
Darwinism assumes all these elements or factors, and gives to 
them the efficiency of primordial causes; makes first causes 
and efficient causes of them. It makes first causes also of its 
law^s or assumptions : 

I. Different conditions surround different germs. 

II. Adaptation to different conditions or power of adapting 
itself to different conditions in' each germ. 

III. Different conditions and adaptation to them produce 
new and improved characteristics in primordial germs. 

IV. Law of heredity perpetuates these characteristics. 

V. Law of over-production. 

VI. Struggle for ]ife caused by over-production. 
VIL Survival of fittest in struggle for life. 

All this is accomplished by matter and its properties, and 
force and its properties and manifestations. It presents the 
above laws, as it calls them, as first causes, and refuses to go 
back of them. 

Such a system ignores all teleological thought and consider- 
ations. It leads the mind away from teleological consider- 
ations. It apparently removes all necessity for teleological 
considerations, and all possibility of teleology. It assumes to 
do away wdth all teleology in nature. The mind is led up 
face to face with these laws, as it calls them, and left with 
them as fiist causes. The mind is led through a long course 



108 THE PPvOBT.EM OF PROBLEMS. 

of ingenious speculations, and curious facts, seemingly sus- 
taining them, and strange variations produced, it is claimed, 
by the laws we have given above, and bewildered and amazed 
by them, is induced to accept the hypothesis as a solution of 
the entire phenomena of nature, and the problem of the uni- 
verse. All necessity for creative power, and all evidence of 
it, is done away, as a myth, it is claimed, and a fetich, called 
natural selection, has produced every thing. As in our illus- 
tration in our introduction, we are led through a long series 
of intricate operations, in which skillful manipulation is dis- 
played, and it is assured that they are all correct, and we 
must accept the result as above all doubt. A careful mathe- 
matician would ask, as we said : Are the postulata possible 
and correct? Will the data give the equations? Will 
each equation follow legitimately from what precedes? Are 
all the processes and manipulations correct? Do the results 
contradict established facts and truths? If one of the ques- 
tions were answered so as to invalidate the work, he would 
reject it entirely, regardless of the seeming accuracy of cer- 
tain steps of the process, or of the skill in manipulation dis- 
played in it. Darwin assumes all that is vital to his theory, 
without proof. Even then his assumed data will not give 
the result. The most important parts of the hypothesis, as it 
is builded up, have to be assumed. The results contradict 
established facts and truths. In all this there is not a single 
idea of teleology suggested, but every attempt is made to do 
away with even a conception of teleology. All necessity for, 
all evidence of it, aiid all possibility of it, are carefully ex- 
cluded. And notwithstanding these fatal defects, and its tre- 
mendous results, we are asked to accept it, on account of the 
wonderful skill in minute phenomena, and the amazing 
knowledge of detail displayed in the intermediate steps of the 
hypothesis. 

The hypothesis tends to lead men to ignore the great ques- 
tion of first cause, and to ignore God in their thoughts. It 
makes primal causes of its laws, which recognize matter and 
physical force alone. It goes farther, it denies boldly and 
utterly all idea of teleology in nature. It assumes and teaches 



DEVELOPMENT, EVOLUTION AND DARWINISM. 109 

that all order, arrangement, and co-ordination in nature, are 
the result of mere matter and force, working under a kind 
of fatal necessity it calls law. It denies that order, arrange- 
ment, and co-ordination imply design or plan. It denies all 
adaptation, adjustment, and design, all prevision of, or pro- 
vision for, the results. It attempts to account for what men 
usually regard as adaptation, adjustment, by the operation of 
blind physical forces, without design or intelligence. It ridi- 
cules and scouts all idea of design in nature. The writings 
of Darwin and his adherents abound in such expressions. It 
undertakes to disprove all design in nature. The atheist 
declares that it has done so. The advocates of this system 
are generally atheists. Atheists are all believers of Darwin- 
ism. They hail it as a help out of the difficulties that have 
ever beset their position, and use it as such. They never 
were able to meet the evidences of order, adjustment, and 
design in nature. Darwinism has relieved all this insuper- 
able objection by disproving, they claim, all design, and that 
order and co-ordination imply design. It is the main reliance 
of atheism at the present time, or its main argument in dis- 
cussion with theism. Such are the tendencies of Darwinism, 
as avowed and taught by Darwin and his adherents. If we 
take the hypothesis as a part of the theory of evolution, it is 
simply blank atheism. True, Darwin does not avow cosmical 
development nor atheistic evolution. Indeed his theory is a 
chain without connection at either end. Few of the believers 
of his system are satisfied with his fragmentary hypothesis. 
They assume the whole theory of cosmical development. 
They assume the eternity of matter and force, and spontane- 
ous generation of life, and use Darwinism only to complete 
the work. Darwin and his adherents deny all causation in 
nature, and all idea of causation, and substitute for it what 
they call time-succession. They deny all spontaneity in the 
universe, even in the mind of man. They dislike the classi- 
fication of phenomena according to ideal conceptions. They 
dislike unitizing the phenomena of nature. They dislike and 
reject the catholic ideas of our religious nature. They sneer 
at mental and moral ideas and reasonings as metaphysics. 



110 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

The reason for all this is that these ideas and considerations 
inevitably lead to the idea of God, and establish his exist- 
ence. Their especial dislike of the teleological view of na- 
ture discloses the inherent and determined atheism of the 
system. 

The question is often asked, "Is Darwin an atheist?" As 
he has never avowed that he is one, nor denied it, we can 
learn only by his expression of sentiment in his Avritings. 
The considerations pro and con are: Con. 1. He uses the term 
Creator. 2. He says life was inbreathed into a few forms 
by the Creator. 3. He says his system is not necessarily 
atheistic. 4. He has never avowed being an atheist. 

Pro. 1. He denies, ridicules, and attacks all idea of tele- 
ology in nature. 2. He scouts the idea of God's having any 
thing to do with the phenomena he investigates. 3. He care- 
fully and intentionally ignores all idea of Creator and God 
in his speculations. 4. His use of the term God, or Creator, 
seems to be merely a use of a popular term that was conven- 
ient as a name for what needed an appellation, and without 
attaching to it any meaning beyond Spencer's Unknowable. 
5. He certainly does not, from his utter ignoring the word in 
his subsequent reasonings, attach to it any of the meaning or 
characteristic ideas that the term implies. 6. It seems to be 
merely a nominal use of a term in popular use, as a name for 
something that had, for convenience, to be named in his 
speculations, and without attaching any of the meaning popu- 
larly attached to the term. 7. There are strong indications 
that the term is used as a screen or blind to cover the athe- 
istic character of his speculations, and to avoid the odium of 
atheism. 

It looks very much as though it were a tub thrown to the 
theological whale. Shall we pronounce Darwinism to be 
atheism: Con. 1. Darwin asserts that his system is not nec- 
essarily atheistic. 2. Persons believe it who also believe in 
God and Creator. 

Pro. 1. Atheists claim it as atheistic and as the foundation 
of atheism. 2. It is their principal reliance now in advo- 
cating atheism. 3. Its tendencies are palpably toward athe- 



DEVELOPMEKT, i:VOLUTION AND DARWINISM. Ill 

ism. 4. It leads men into atheism almost invariably. 5. All 
atheists are believers of the theory, and nearly all believers 
of the theory are atheists. 6. It is utterly opposed to all 
teleology and all the leading ideas of theism. 7. It utterly 
destroys all idea of God as ruler, sustainer, and providence 
in the universe. It most palpably denies the teachings of the 
Scriptures in Genesis and the sanction given to them by 
Christ and his apostles. It most palpably denies all the catholic 
ideas of the Scriptures, concerning creation and providence 
and divine government. To accommodate the Scriptures to 
Darwinism, their declarations must be emptied of all mean- 
ing, and a new and foreign, and often opposite, meaning must 
be injected into them. Such are the bearings of the system 
of Darwinism on theism and religious ideas. We will reserve 
our examination of its influence on the morals and character 
and life of those who accept it to another place. We do 
not say that establishing the tendency of these speculations 
necessarily disprove them. It does so only this far, if they 
contradict the catholic intuitions of our rational, moral, and 
religious nature, they can not be true ; and if we take 'our 
nature as our standard,. we must reject them. 



112 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 



CHAPTER V. 

Failures of Evolution, Darwinism, and Other 
Atheistic Theories. 

We have now progressed thus far in our work. We have 
presented an outline of the demands of the problem, also an 
outline of the data we must use in solving the problem. We 
then gave an outline of some of the solutions of the problem, 
and pointed out their tendencies. We are now ready to com- 
pare these solutions with the demands of the problem, and 
test them. 

I. Chance ; or a fortuitious concourse of atoms and of their 
existences and phenomena. — This theory is the despair of all 
reason and sense. Modern science has established one thing 
beyond cavil. All phenomena, existences, and nature is, un- 
der law, co-ordinated and uniform law. There is an order 
including every atom, every organ, every plant or animal, 
each world, each system, and the cosmos. This sufficiently 
disproves all theory of chance. 

II. Fate. — If this mean that a fortuitious concourse of 
atoms and phenomena in the beginning, at last resulted in the 
present order of things, which has now become fixed and 
eternal, we reply that investigation has shown that in the 
first constitution of things there was co-ordination, law, and 
order, and has driven all idea of chance out of the universe. 
If it mean that the present order of things is eternal, the 
reply is that all that we see is finite, dependent, and perish- 
able. The very idea of an eternal, infinite, independent series 
of the finite, dependent, and perishable is absurd. Again, 
investigation has shown that the present order of things is the 
result of a development, a progression. Then the present 
order of things can not be eternal in the present order. It 
must have had a beginning. In the universe we see too much 



FAILURES OF INVOLUTION. 113 

order, system, plan, and law, to permit us to entertain, for 
one moment, the idea of chance; and too much disorder, 
alternativity and failure, to allow us to entertain the idea of 
resistless, undeviating fate. The only possible ground is a 
creative mind acting on a plan, in which freedom, to a certain 
extent, and alternativity, were a necessary part. 

III. Theories of Evolution. — We shall first examine 
them at some length as one scheme, and when we reach phys- 
iological development, we shall examine Darwinism. We 
shall accept and use, as a basis for our reasoning, the axiom 
of the physicist, Ex nihilo nihil fit — ''Out of nothing, nothing 
comes" — and give it its full application. The physicist says, 
*'If out of nothing, nothing comes, then something must have 
existed forever." This we accept without question, and 
affirm, also, that there must be inherently and originally in 
this something all that is afterwards evolved out of it; for 
if something could evolve out of itself what was not in itself, 
it would be a producing of something out of nothing, and 
a violation of our axiom. Then we must postulate as the 
ground and source of all being, that which inherently and 
primordially includes all being and possibilities of being — 
which includes and contains potentially and eternally all be- 
ing and possibilities of being. The issue between the atheist 
and theist is: Shall we postulate mind as the ground and 
source of all being? or shall we postulate matter and force. 
Wind irrational force, and blind, insensate matter? There 
can be no evasion of this alternative. Either we must 
assume the eternity of mind, and make mind eternal, self-ex- 
isting, independent, self-sustaining, and thus make mind the 
beginning, the ground and source of all being ; or we must 
make matter and force, blind irrational force, and blind in- 
sensate matter, eternal, self-existent, independent, and self- 
sustaining. Holding the physicist inflexibly to his own 
axiom, "Out of nothing, nothing comes," we lay down as our 
basis idea, that we must assume or postulate the eternity, 
self-existence, independence, and self-sustenance of mind, and 
make mind the beginning and ground of all being. We 
must postulate that which contains potentially all that comes 
10 



114 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

out of it. We must have in it potentially all that after- 
wards appears, whether by creation or evolution. If not in 
the ground or beginning potentially, it can not be evolved 
out of it without violating our axiom, "Out of nothing, noth- 
ing comes." 

We postulate mind for these reasons : 

I. All our ideas of spontaneity, spontaneous, self-acting 
power, of force and causation, have their origin in our con- 
sciousness of our minds and wills, as spontaneous, self-acting 
power, energizing power in action, controlling power and 
force, and as causes producing effects. The only spontaneity, 
spontaneous, self-acting power or force that we know is mind. 
Hence, the only self-acting, spontaneous power, such as must 
be the origin of this evolution, the origin of all force, all 
activity of force, must have its origin in mind. The only 
efficient causation, of which we have any knowledge, is mind. 
If we trace the displays of force seen in the universe, through 
all its activities and channels of display, back to its origin, 
we will find that it is an expression of power exerted by 
mind, the only spontaneous, self-acting force or cause, the 
only efficient cause of which we have any knowledge. 

II. The superioi'ity of mind over matter. The physicist 
admits this, for he regards mind as the highest result of evolu- 
tion, and tells us that evolution will give us inconceivably 
higher developments of mind in the future. 

III. The power of mind over matter, controlling, subordi- 
nating and using it, demonstrates that matter exists for mind, 
and is subordinate to it. 

IV. We call especial attention to this thought. The pri- 
mordial constitution of matter and force is such as to demand 
the pre-existence of mind anterior to such first constitution of 
matter and force, to give to them this constitution. The sixty 
original elements of matter, and the essential properties of 
matter, the forces and the properties of these forces, are co- 
ordinated, arranged, adjusted, and adapted in order, method, 
system, exhibiting design, plan, and law, with prevision of, 
and provision for, all that afterwards appears. In this are re- 
alized the highest ideas of reason. The highest and most ab- 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 115 

stract ideas of reason, are realized in the primordial constitu- 
tion of things. All this has its only conceivable ground in 
mind. Then mind must have existed anterior to the first 
constitution of matter and force, to give to them this pri- 
mordial constitution. 

V. Mind is the only adequate beginning and ground for 
life, sensation, instinct, reason, and moral nature and char- 
acter. 

VI. If we postulate mind as the ground and beginning of 
all being, we have adequate ground for all being, and have 
no further difficulty to account for the beginning of life, 
sensation, instinct, reason, and moral nature and character. 

VII. The rational and moral intuitions of our nature de- 
mand such a basis for all being, and are satisfied with no 
other. 

We refuse to accept the position of the physicist when he 
postulates matter and force, blind, irrational force, and blind, 
insensate matter, as the beginning and ground of all being, 
for these reasons: 

I. There must be in this ground self-activity, spontaneity, 
spontaneous, self-acting force. Since the primordial constitu- 
tion of matter and force, and the course of evolution are in ac- 
cordance with order, co-ordination, adjustment, plan, method, 
and system, as the physicist admits when he speaks of evolu- 
tion by law, the law of evolution and the law of nature, this 
power -must be ])Ower co-ordinated, adjusted, and adapted, 
and regulated in a plan, method, and system according to law. 
If we admitted a blind, aimless, purposeless, necessary activity 
in blind, irrational force and matter, it w^ould not give one of 
tliese characteristics we see in the primordial constitution of 
matter and force, and in the course of evolution. The very 
liighest ideas of reason are realized in all this. Then in the 
ground of all being we must have spontaneous, self-active 
power, regulated, co-ordinated, and adjusted according to the 
highest ideas of reason. This has no ground in blind, irra- 
tional matter and force. 

II. Matter and physical force are inferior in being attri- 
butes and manifestations to mind. This, the physicist admits 



116 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

for he makes mind the highest product of evolution. It ia 
absurd to make the inferior the source or cause of the supe- 
rior. 

III. Matter and physical force are subordinate to mind, in- 
ferior to mind, the servants of mind, and exist for the uses 
of mind. 

IV. The j)rimordial constitution of matter and force is such, 
as could have come into being or existed at all, only with 
mind existing anterior to such constitutions and causing it. 
In the primordial constitution of matter and force — the first 
constitution of the sixty original elements of matter and the 
essential properties of matter, in the primordial constitution 
of force, and the essential powers and properties of force — 
there is co-ordination, arrangement, adjustment, into order, 
method, system, and plan, exhibiting adaptation, design, and 
law, with prevision of, and provision for, all that afterwards 
appears. The very highest conceptions of reason are realized 
in this primoj'dial constitution of matter and force. It is in 
accordance with the highest and most abstract ideas of reason. 
This necessitates the pre-existence of mind anterior to such 
primordial constitution of matter and force, to give to matter 
and force this first constitution. 

V. The primordial constitution of things is such as to prove 
matter and force to be subordinate agents in their first consti- 
tution, the product of mind and manufactured articles. The 
facts mentioned in No. 4 clearly establish this. 

VI. Matter and force, blind, irrational, insensate matter 
and force, are no adequate basis for spontaneity, self-activity, 
spontaneous, self-acting force, life, sensation, instinct, reason, 
moral nature, and moral character. They do not contain 
them, nor a sufficient ground for them ; hence they can not 
be evolved out of them. 

VII. If we postulate matter and force as the ground of all 
being, we have either to steal clandestinely, grain by grain, 
during an almost infinite interval, the whole of spontaneity, 
self-acting life, sensation, instinct, reason, moral nature, and cau- 
f^ation, and foist them, illicitly and furtively, into matter and 
force during the course of development or evolution claimed by 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. ' 117 

the physicist, or are forced to do what Tyndall attempted in his 
Belfast speech with an audacity that would have been sub- 
lime had it not been so gross an insult to common sense, 
assume or take by force the whole question — not beg it, but 
arrogantly assume it — by foisting into matter at the beginning 
all that we wish afterwards to evolve out of it. This speech 
is especially valuable as a confession, by one of the great 
lights of evolution, that their assumption that matter and 
force can evolve what is not in them is absurd, and that 
their furtive theft of life and causation, even during the in- 
finite time asked by Darwin, is also illogical and absurd. 

He attempts to cut the gordian knot by audaciously depos- 
iting or foisting into matter, at the beginning, all that he wants 
afterwards to evolve out of it. In doing this we trample 
under foot all common sense and reason, and every principle 
of inductive philosophy. We make a god, an infinite fetich, 
of matter, and assign to it all that we, if materialists, refuse to 
accept in the being or nature of God as infinite mind or ab- 
solute cause. We make an infinite fetich of matter, and 
trample under foot every principle of reason and common 
sense, in assigning to blind, insensate matter and blind, irra- 
tional force, what reason and all experience declare belong to 
mind alone. We trample under foot every intuition of our 
rational, moral, and religious nature, which invariably affirm 
that these attributes, characteristics, and results can be as- 
signed to mind, and to mind alone. We have to assign to 
matter the very attributes and characteristics of God that the 
physicist finds, or pretends to find, it impossible to conceive, 
and in violation of common sense, which says these character- 
istics must inhere in mind, and can not belong to matter. As 
a matter of fact and experience, we have no knowledge of 
matter or experience of it, except as possessing the essential 
properties^extension, impenetrability, porosity, density, rarity, 
ductility, elasticity, malleability, inertia, form, and situation. 
We can not conceive of it as existing without these proper- 
ties. We can not conceive of force as existing without its 
manifestations, attraction, repulsion, adhesion, cohesion, heat, 
motion, electricity, and chemical action. We can not con- 



118 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMSi 

ceive of matter and force as existing without these properties 
and characteristics, and manifestations, and their co-ordina- 
tion, arrangement and adjustment, in order, method, and sys- 
tem, exhibiting plan, design, adaptation, and law, with pur- 
pose and prevision of, and provision for, all that afterwards 
appears. All this necessitates the pre-existence of mind an- 
terior to the primordial constitution of matter and force, to 
give to matter and force such first constitution. These char- 
acteristics of the primal constitution of matter and force, prove 
matter and force to be, in their very primordial constitution, 
subordinate agents, manufactured articles, the products of 
mind. This forever sets to one side the assumption of the 
physicist, of the eternity, self-existence, independence, and 
self-sustenance of matter and force ; and places mind anterior 
to them, to give them being. The thoughtful reflection of the 
reader is asked on this point. 

Suppose, however, Ave attempt to hold in conception those 
nondescript, unthinkable inconceivables, matter and force, 
without essential properties or manifestations, and without co- 
ordination, adjustment and adaptation of them; whence came 
these properties and their co-ordination and adjustment and 
adaptation, Avhen they do appear? Were they latent in mat- 
ter and force for an eternity before their activity? If so, 
what impulse first caused or started their activity? If not 
latent, whence came they? If eternally active, did they ex- 
ist for an eternity in activity without co-ordination, adjust- 
ment and adaptation? If so, how came they ever to be co-or- 
dinated, adjusted and adapted? If co-ordinated, adjusted and 
adapted, and active eternally, were they active in evolution? 
If so, Avhy not this progression be perfected in an eternity? 
If co-ordinated, adjusted and adapted, but not active, what 
impulse started their first activity? If latent for an eter- 
nity, whether co-ordinated or not, there can be no spontaneity 
or self-activity in them, and evolution could not have its ori- 
gin in them. If we assume spontaneity and self-activity of 
force to be inherent and eternal, as the origin and source of 
evolution, then this progression would be perfect. This is not 
the case, hence the progression can not be eternal, and had a 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 119 

beginning, and matter and force have not that spontaneity 
and activity that they must have to be the source or basis of 
an evolution. How could they be co-ordinated and adjusted 
and adapted, -and not active? Then reason as we may, we 
have to concede the co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation 
of the essential properties and manifestations of matter and 
force in their primordial constitution. We can not conceive 
of matter and force as existing without these essential properties, 
and their co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation. We can 
not conceive of matter without its original elementary sub- 
stances, or of force without its manifestations, in what are 
called the physical forces, and the co-ordination, adjustment 
and adaptation of all these. This adaptation, co-ordination and 
adjustment of the original elementary substances of matter, 
and of its essential properties, and of force and its original 
properties and manifestations, in their primordial constitution, 
is in an order, method and system, exhibiting design, purpose 
and plan, with prevision of, and provision for, all that afterwards 
appeal^, and is in accordance with law. The highest concep- 
tions of reason, the most abstract ideas of reason, are realized 
in all these features of the primordial constitution of matter 
and force, and make of matter and force subordinate agents, 
the product of mind and manufactured articles. It estab- 
lishes the pre-existence of mind anterior to matter and force, 
to give to them their primordial constitution. There are but 
two ways to avoid this conclusion. One is to deny co-ordi- 
nation, adjustment and adaptation in the primordial constitu- 
tion of matter and force. The one who does this bids adieu 
to all reason and common sense, and can not be reasoned with. 
Pie denies all reason, and the only basis for reason, and ren- 
ders the very evolution for which he contends an utter impos- 
sibility; for if there be not this co-ordination, adjustment and 
adaptation in the primordial constitution of matter and force, 
all evolution, especially evolution in accordance with law and 
order, is utterly impossible. Or he must deny that co-ordina- 
tion and adaptation into a system, exhibiting plan with pre- 
vision and provision, and in accordance with law, necessarily 
imply the pre-existence of mind as their only conceivable 



120 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ground. If lie does this, he denies all reason and common 
sense, and can be reasoned with no further. Then, accepting 
the axiom of the physicist, " Out of nothing, nothing comes," 
we are compelled to postulate mind as the only adequate 
ground for existence and being. Unless we do this, we are 
compelled to have life, se-nsation, instinct, reason, moral na- 
ture and character come out of what does not contain them, 
or have the highest existence of all being come out of nothing. 
The first constitution of things, the primordial constitution of 
matter and force, is such as to prove them to be suborduiate 
agents, the products of mind, manufactured articles; and 
proves that they can not be self-existent, eternal, independent 
and self-sustaining, and proves that mind must have existed 
anterior to the first constitution of matter and force, as the 
ground of all being, the only eternal, self-existent, independ- 
ent and self-sustaining being. 

Let us now examine the star-dust assumption, or fire-mist 
theory, or nebular hypothesis. This hypothesis assumes that 
all space w^as once pervaded by matter in the form of highly 
heated gas or vapor. This assumption contradicts all expe- 
rience, for actual experience knows of no solid that is the prod- 
uct of highly heated gaseous vapor. On the contrary, gases 
are produced from solids. The query arises, Was all absolute 
space originally pervaded by this fire-mist? If it was not, how 
was this repellant mass retained as a mass? Why not repul- 
sion scatter it in space ? If all space was pervaded by this 
fiery mass, how came it to cool? Wliither was the heat radi- 
ated? If only a portion of absolute space was pervaded by it, 
and the heat was radiated ofi" during an eternity, why was not 
the mass deprived of all heat during an eternity? How came 
the nuclei to be formed around which the fire-mist began to 
revolve? Whence came the different degrees of density that 
caused these nuclei f If it be said unequal degrees of heat, 
whence came the difference? Would not radiation through 
the mass preserve equal temperature? Why not these differ- 
ences result in perfect results in an eternity or a perfect pro- 
gression? Tlien were the essential properties of matter pres- 
ent in this fiery mass? Were the sixty elementary substances 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 121 

present in the mass, in a mixture? Whence came these es- 
sential properties of matter? Whence came these sixty ele- 
mentary substances and their essential properties? Whence 
came force? Was it active in this mass? If so, why not 
produce its usual effects? Were the essential properties of 
force present in this mass? Were the essential manifesta- 
tions of force present? Or was heat the only manifestation 
of force? Whence came the other modes or manifestations of 
force? The essential properties of matter are arranged, co- 
ordinated, in exact mathematical law. The elementary sub- 
stances are adjusted in exact mathematical proportion and 
law. So are their essential properties. The various forces or 
manifestations of force are co-ordinated and adjusted in ex- 
act mathematical proportion and law. These proportions and 
laws realize some of the highest conceptions and most abstract 
ideas of reason. Whence came such realization of these high- 
est ideas of reason? Materialism says, ''Out of matter and 
force, without thought or reason." Keason and common sense 
say that these highest conceptions of pure reason, that tax 
the highest efforts of reason to apprehend them, must have 
had their origin in reason, and been realized by the action 
of reason. 

The forces of matter are co-ordinated, adjusted and adapted 
as to when, where, and how long, and how often, in what order, 
to what extent, and with what force they will act. Chemical 
action is- co-ordinated in like manner. Simple elements will 
unite with other simple elements in exact proportion. They 
will unite with certain elements and not with others. Differ- 
ent proportions give different substances, and in this way we 
have all the almost innumerable compounds of nature, from 
sixty simple elements. All this is in exact mathemati- 
cal proportion and law. It requires the highest exercise of 
reason to grasp it. Tliese highest ideas of pure reason are 
realized in chemical action. Did they emanate from mere 
matter and force or from mind ? In crystallization we have 
the most profound, exact, and beautiful forms of geometry, 
and its most abstract aiid ide:il conceptions and laws realized. 
Is this tlie result of matter and force, or mind? Then in the 
11 



122 THE PROBLEM OF PPvOBr.EMS. 

forms of the heavenly bodies and of their orbits, in their dis- 
tances, densities, motions, and velocities, we have the most 
exact and profound mathematical order, proportion, and law 
realized. Did blind, insensate matter and blind, irrational 
force realize these most profound and exalted conceptions of 
pure reason ; or are they the result of the action of mind ? If 
we return to an examination of the earth we observe in the 
masses of which it is composed things that are utterly incom- 
patible with the idea that they are the result of blind, irra- 
tional force of chemical action on the sixty original elements, 
and utterly incompatible with the idea that the mass of the 
earth resulted from the cooling of heated matter. There are 
mixtures of metals and substances that cool at vastly different 
temperatures. If we attempt to melt them, the easily melted 
substances are expelled long before the others are melted. 
How were they mixed as melted substances at first? 

Some of these sixty elementary substances we now find in 
nature, united in useful compounds, with substances for which 
they have comparatively slight affinity, to the exclusion of 
others with which they have a far greater affinity, but with 
which they would form destructive compounds. Chlorine is 
united with sodium in a useful compound (salt), when it has a 
far greater affinity for hydrogen or nitrogen, and would form 
with them compounds destructive of life and organization. 
Nitrogen is found chiefly united in a mixture with oxygen in 
the air, when chemically it unites with chlorine so rapidly as 
to produce an explosion. Hydrogen is united with oxygen in 
water, when it has greater affinity for chlorine. How came 
these substances in useful compounds with oxygen, when they 
have far greater affinity for chlorine, with which they form 
destructive compounds? If these substances were one indis- 
criminately mixed in a gaseous, chaotic mixture, as the nebu- 
lar hypotheses claims, or as is claimed by all theories that claim 
that the earth was once in a molten state ; how came they to 
separate from substances for which they had so great affinity, 
and unite in useful compounds with substances for which they 
had but little affinity ; or to reject substances in the mixture 
for which they had great affinity, but with which they would 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 123 

make compounds destructive of life and organization? Chemi- 
cal affinity never did this, for it is an absolute violation of all 
chemical affinity. Mind acting on a plan, with prevision of, 
and making provision for, what follows, is the only reasonable 
explanation of this. Chemical affinity, uncontroled by mind, 
would have produced the opposite result, and is an utter ab- 
surdity as an explanation. 

Another objection to this theory arises here : Was chemical 
affinity active during the molten state of the earth? Chemi- 
cal union of many of these elementary substances, once sup- 
posed to be indiscriminately mingled in a chaotic mixture, is 
greatly accelerated by heat — the union of chlorine and nitrogen, 
for instance. Yet, in violation of all chemical affinity, inten- 
sified by heat, these substances, supposed to have been once 
mingled in a chaotic mixture, are not now united. Such a 
commingling in a heated, gaseous vapor is an utter impossi- 
bility. 

The chemist, with the substances of the compounds in na- 
ture in a pure state, unmixed, with a knowledge of their exact 
proportions, can, after thousands of years of study, produce but 
few of them. How did the six elements of feldspar, one of the 
principal elements of what is called igneous rock, one of the 
most common substances of nature, separate from the rest in 
an indiscriminate mixture, for some of which they have a 
greater affinity than for any in the compound, and unite in 
a compound that all the skill and intelligence of man can not 
produce? Mica, another ingredient in igneous rock, has ten 
elements, the six of feldspar and four others. Horneblende has 
nine, the six of feldspar and three others. Now, how come 
these elements of different degrees of fusibility to unite in these 
three rocks? Since they melt at widely different degrees of 
heat, it is utterly impossible that the rock was formed in this 
manner. These sixty elements are near the surface together. 
They must have cooled at the same time, or those that cooled 
first and became solid would have gravitated toward the center. 
But since they cool at vastly different degrees of temperature, 
such cooling at once is impossible, and they never were in a 
melted state together, or they would not be placed as they are. 



124 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

We find four very rare and volatile substances only in metal- 
loids, with platinum, a rare metal, that volitilizes only with 
intense heat. Then, where was the water when the earth was 
cooling ? Most rock could not crystallize without water, and 
yet liow could water get into such rock in a melted condition, 
when it melts only at a temperature that would expel all water 
in superheated steam ? And yet water is in these rocks in 
great quantities. The mass of the crust of the earth is gran- 
itic rock. It is made of three unique crystals always symmet- 
rically united and arranged. Yet these are of different de- 
grees of fusibility. They never united from a heated mass. 
If granitic rock be melted it destroys its present character. 
Then the rock that is specially called igneous, and forms the 
mass of granitic rock, never was in a heated condition. 

Then evolution and cosmical development does not account 
for matter ; nor for the elementary substances of matter ; nor 
for the primordial constitution of matter in these elementary 
substances; nor for the essential properties of matter; nor for 
force, nor for the essential properties of force ; nor for the 
essential manifestations of force. Evolution utterly fails to 
account for the co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation of 
these substances, properties, forces and manifestations, in an 
order, system and method, exhibiting design,, plan, and pur- 
pose, with prevision of, and provision for, all that afterwards 
appears in the way of evolution, and all in accordance with 
law, expressing the highest conceptions of pure reason. Evo- 
lution fails to account for chemical action, compounds and 
crystallization, in accordance with the highest ideas of reason. 
There are useful compounds in opposition to affinity, that 
would have produced destructive compounds. These are 
intelligent results, above and in controvention of mere physi- 
cal forces and matter and chemical action. Evolution espe- 
cially fails to account for the realization of the highest 
conceptions of reason, in numbers, proportion, and geometri- 
cal form and law, in the primordial constitution of matter and 
force, and tlie elements of matter, and the properties of 
matter and force. 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 125 

We have now only mechanical mixtures, mineral compounds, 
and chemical compounds, and inorganic matter. It is very 
common now for evolutionists to deny all separation between 
matter destitute of life, and matter endowed with life. They 
deny that there is any chasm between inorganic matter or 
matter destitute of vegetable organization, structure and life, 
and organic matter, or matter endowed with vegetable organi- 
zation, structure and life. As this is a vital issue, let us be 
very explicit at this point. Observation has shown that all 
vegetable matter — in fact, all organic matter — is made up of 
cells. There is nothing in inorganic matter, matter destitute 
of vegetable life, that has the cellular structure of the vegeta- 
ble cell. Here we establish an organic and radical difference 
an essential difference. Whence came this cellular structure ? 
No chemistry or chemical action can produce the simplest 
vegetable cells. All cells are produced by structures, them- 
selves composed of cells. Whence came the first structure or 
the first cell? In vegetable structures, there are sixteen of 
the simple elementary substances. Evolution supposes that 
these sixteen separated themselves from a turbulent chaos of 
indiscriminately mixed substances, sixty in number, or from 
chemical compounds made of them, and united in the vegeta- 
ble structure, when most of them have greater affinity ■ for 
other elements, not found in the vegetable cell, than for any 
in the cells. They separated in violation of chemical affinity, 
and united in disregard of chemical affinity, and yet chemical 
action is appealed to to account for vegetable structure and 
life. But even when these elements are united in a mixture, 
with all the skill that man's intelligence can suggest, there is 
no vegetable cell, or the slightest symptoms of one. The 
intelligent naturalist says that life, a vital principle or force, 
is wanted as an architect to build up or unite the elements in a 
cell. Right here we have a palpable case of arguing in a 
circle by the evolutionist. Ask him what this life, this vital 
force is, and he will tell you it is the one force pervading all 
nature, modified by the organization of matter into an organic 
structure. Ask him why the chemical union of the elements 



126 THE PKOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

of the cell, in a mixture, do not produce the cell, and he 
says the architect, the force that builds the cell, is wanting. 
That is, the organization is produced by the vital force, and 
that vital force is the one force modified by organization. 
The force produces the organization, and the organization pro- 
duces the force. There can be no cell without the force, and 
the force can not exist without the cell. A more complete 
instance of logical suicide never was seen. 

Again, experience and inductive philosophy know nothing 
of vegetable structure except as developed from a seed com- 
posed of cells united in such germinal structure. Nor does it 
know any thing of a seed, except as produced by a vege- 
table structure similar to what is afterwards developed out 
of the seed. Whence, then, came the first seed of even the 
crudest and simplest vegetable structure? There is an 
attempt to bridge the chasm here by phrases, and by sub- 
stances assumed to be both inorganic and organic or to con- 
tain elements of both; such as proteine, protoplasm, elemen- 
tary life stuflT. It is both a begging of the question and 
a hiding behind an ambiguous name for something that does 
not exist, and of which we have not the slighest knowledge. 
The crudest cellular structure, usually seen in certain fluids 
in vegetable or animal organisms, is called protoplasm or 
elementary life stuff". Out of it, it is claimed, is evolved all 
life, vegetable and animal. Can protoplasm be evolved by 
material forces or chemical action? Man can analyze pro- 
toplasm. He can mix the elements he finds in it. But his 
compound, Avhich he calls proteine, is separated from proto- 
plasm by the whole width of the chasm between death and 
life. There is neither cellular structure, nor life in it. It 
will destroy life, and decompose cellular structure. It will 
destroy protoplasm. Protoplasm of the vegetable can be pro- 
duced only by organism of a vegetable. We nowhere find 
it in nature, except as the product of a vegetable structure. 
Material forces and chemistry never have produced it in 
human knowledge. Then protoplasm can lose its vital force 
and become dead protoplasm. It is chemically and organi- 
cally what it was before, but there is no life, no growth in 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 127 

it. Chemistry can not even produce dead protoplasm; but 
if it produced protoplasm at all, it would be dead pro- 
toplasm. Protoplasms of different vegetable structures differ 
from each other, and one does not produce or unite with 
the others. Vegetable life does not spring from elementary 
protoplasm. It comes from cells united into a germ or seed. 
Nor does protoplasm ever come from inorganic matter, chem- 
ical action, or in any way except through a vegetable or- 
ganism by living matter. Cells, with power of organization, 
growth, and reproduction, can not be produced out of crude 
protoplasm by any method whatever. They can be pro- 
duced only by vegetable organizations, living structures. 
Then evolution can not account for protoplasm, nor for the 
simplest vegetable cell, nor for the simplest organization of 
them into a seed, nor for the simplest structure developed 
out of a seed. 

Then evolution supposes that the sixteen elements found in 
vegetables, by chemical action, assume a cellular structure. 
This nature denies in toto. It assumes that these cells assume 
the organization seen in a seed, and out of the seed comes a 
plant. Nature denies all this. It knows of no seed except 
as produced by vegetable organization. Or it assumes that 
the cells assume the form of vegetable organization as seen in 
the plant, and that produces the seed. But nature denies 
this, for it knows of no plant except as developed out of seed. 
Just as evolution could not account for life without organism, 
and for organism without life, so it can not account for plant 
without a seed, nor for a seed without a plant. But not only 
are material forces unable to produce protoplasm cells and or- 
ganization, but they are invariably absolutely destructive of 
them. Cells, protoplasm, seeds, organization, and life are 
possible only when a new force, an antagonistic force, con- 
quers these forces, co-ordinates them, and renders them tribu- 
tary, and resists and overcomes their destructive tendency 
continually, and subordinates them to the uses of the organ- 
ization and life. When this vital force ceases to act and re- 
sist the destructive tendency of these physical forces, they soon 
decompose and destroy the organization and structure. Ani- 



128 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

mals and plants die on the elements of protoplasm, or on any 
imitation of it man can make. Protoplasm alone goes no 
further than protoplasm. Animals and plants each appropri- 
ate out of nature the elements necessary, and manufacture 
their own protoplasm. Animal and plant protoplasm comes 
only from animal or plant organism. Whence come the 
animal or plant? The magic term protoplasm will not con- 
jure them into existence, for it is produced only by animal or 
plant. No instance can be given of the production of an or- 
ganism out of inorganic matter without cells, germ, or seed. 
Then protoplasm, cells, or even germs alone, do not produce the 
lowest form of animal or vegetable life. We have thus shown 
that there is a chasm between inorganic matter and organic 
matter, between vegetable organization, and mere mineral 
or chemical organization, between matter destitute of vege- 
table organization, growth and life and matter with vegetable 
organization, growth and life, as wide and as impassable as 
that which yawned between the rich man and Lazarus. No 
evolution, no convenient phrases, no manufacture of conven- 
ient, unknown substances can bridge it over. We can show 
that physical forces can not produce the basis of life — that 
the basis of life can not evolve life. Not only so, but that 
they are destructive of the basis of life and of the organiza- 
tion in which life alone can exist, and of life itself. If this 
is not establishing a chasm between inorganic and organic 
matter, and an impassable one, it can not be done. 

Evolutionists claim that there is no chasm between animal 
and vegetable life and organization. But, unfortunately for 
them, the microscope declares that animal and vegetable cells 
and protoplasm are radically different. Bastian's experiments 
with the microscope show that the vegetable and animal cell 
are radically different in cellular structure. So is the cellular 
structure of the animal and vegetable germs. The conditions 
necessary to the development and growth of one destroys the 
other. Animal life is sustained by the destruction of vege- 
table matter and life. Then the cells, germs, and structures 
differ in cellular structure, means of sustenance, and growth. 
Animal or vegetable protoplasm is not necessary for animal 



FAILURES OJF EVOLUTION. 129 

growth or sustenance. Nor is vegetable protoplasm necessary 
for vegetable life or sustenance. Vegetables attach, disinte- 
grate and appropriate inorganic matter. Animals use, in sim- 
ilar manner, vegetables. Thus the vegetable prepares the 
inorganic matter for the higher, the animal. But animal 
protoplasm, or cell, or organism, or life, can not be evolved 
out of the vegetable, or out of inorganic matter, by any 
vegetable form or process, or chemical or physical force. 
Animal protoplasm, cells and germs are produced only by 
animal organization, by appropriating and assimilating vege- 
table matter. There is a chasm between vegetable and ani- 
mal nature. No sophistry and convenient phrases, or as- 
sumptions or singular analogies, can bridge it over. 

Evolution utterly fails to account for animal life, growth 
and reproduction. There are sixteen elements in animal or- 
ganizations. Evolution supposes that these sixteen substances 
separated themselves from sixty others in a mass, in which 
they were indiscriminately mixed, or from chemical com- 
pounds, when they had in most cases a greater affinity for 
elements not in the animal compound than for any in it, and 
that this Avas performed in such a manner, as to obey exact 
mathematical law and proportion, so as to form the cell or 
germ. It supposes that mechanical or chemical forces did 
this. One series of sixteen separated and united thus in 
vegetable compounds — that vegetables were thus evolved 
first, and prepared and adapted for the sustenance of animal 
life ; and then, that another series of sixteen elements, in 
different proportions, separated from other elements and 
united in animal organizations. All this was accomplished 
by the aimless, purposeless workings of blind, irrational force 
and blind, insensate matter; or that animal life, organiza- 
tion and growth w^ere evolved by veget^ables. This supposi- 
tion we have already sufficiently disproved. Then evolution 
utterly fails to account for animal life, organization, growth, 
sustenance, and reproduction. Indeed, these existences and 
phenomena arise and exhibit characteristics in direct contra- 
diction to the theory of evolution. 

Sensation can not be evolved out of matter destitute of 



180 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

sensation. There is an impassable chasm between organic 
matter possessing sensation on the one side, and organic mat- 
ter destitute of sensation and inorganic matter on the other. 
The evolutionist either denies any such chasm, in the face of 
all experience, observation, and sense, or ignores it in his 
reasoning, or assumes that matter and force have leaped this 
chasm, although he can not give a single instance of such a 
leap. Evolution utterly fails to account for the origin of 
instinct, so varied and wonderful, with such wonderful dis- 
plays of intelligence. There are animals of the lowest grade 
of intelligence that perform acts that display a knowledge of 
some of the most profound problem in mechanics, the arts, 
in chemistry, and other sciences. The bee builds a cell that 
displays the most profound architectural and geometrical 
knowledge and skill, in securing strength of structure and 
economy of space. Do unintelligent physical forces secure so 
wonderful an intellectual result? Does the atom of brain of 
the bee secure so wonderful an intellectual result? It is 
absurd to take either position. There must be an intelligence 
above the bee, that has given to the bee the instinct that 
blindly secures this result. Whence came the instinct, the 
instrument so wonderful in its character, and where is the in- 
telligence that solved the problem it so unerringly works out ? 
Multiplied instances might be given, where, in obtaining 
food, providing shelter, evading danger, and in other particu- 
lars, instinct exhibits a wonderful obedience to the most 
profound problems of mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, 
natural history, and other sciences. The intelligence is not 
in the insect or animal. The instinct does not solve the 
problem, or acquire this wonderful knowledge, yet there is 
an intelligence that solved the problem and had this knowl- 
edge, and such intelligence must have given the instinct that 
so Avonderfully and unerringly acts as the instrument of this 
knowledge. It is not in the animal or the instinct. Is it in 
the unintelligent forces of nature? Did they accomplish so 
wonderful an intellectual result ? Evolution is utterly impo- 
tent to account for the intelligence or the instinct, the won- 
derful instrument of the intelligence. 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 131 

Evolution can not account for reason and its results as seen 
in man — self -consciousness, and rational intuitions of cau- 
sation, infinity in space and time and being and causation, 
power of reasoning and demonstration, moral conceptions of 
conscience, moral desert, right and wrong, and retribution, 
religioiis intuitions of God, creation, government, providence 
and retribution. No stretch of the evolution hypothesis can 
give a shadow of suggestion of the origin of these phenomena, 
the highest phenomena in nature. There is a chasm between 
the most highly organized animal and man that no evolution 
can leap or bridge over. Man's brain capacity is, taken on 
an average of all mankind, over eighty cubic inches. The 
most highly organized ape has a brain capacity of only thirty- 
two cubic inches, although possessing a larger organization 
than man ; or man's brain capacity is over two and a half 
times that of the most highly organized ape. If we compare 
the frontal brain, or reasoning, moral and religious faculties, 
the ratio is ten to one. Indeed, in the moral and religious 
faculties there is no comparison, for the animal is destitute of 
them. It is destitute of the catholic intuitions of reason, and 
of all power to evolve them ; also of all power of abstract 
reasoning; utterly destitute of all moral and religious in- 
tuitions and all power to evolve them. No amount of con- 
ditions, or change of conditions, or instruction, can impart to 
an animal one of the distinctive characteristics of man, or 
evolve them out of his nature. The brute is destitute of 
all power of self-development. It is utter nonsense to talk 
of self-development of man's rational, moral and religious 
nature, or of conditions or influences of physical force and 
matter evolving them, out of the animal. No amount of 
degradation can strip man of this rational, moral, and relig- 
ious nature, and especially this power of self-development and 
progress, or reduce him to the brute. Here is a chasm no 
evolution can leap or bridge. In its presence evolution is 
dumb. Wallace and Huxley admit this, and even ridicule 
the idea of man's being a development from lower orders of 
animals. 

We have, in our examination of evolution, thus far shown 



132 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

that it is utterly impotent to account for matter and force, 
for the essential properties of matter and force, for the sixty 
original elements of matter, and the different manifestations 
of force, f )r the disthictive characteristics of each element and 
each force, for the co-ordination, adjustment, and adaptation 
of all these, in a system exhibiting design, plan, prevision of, 
and provision for, all that afterwards appeared, in accordance 
with law, all expressing and realizing the highest ideas of 
reason. It can not account for chemical action or crystalliza- 
tion, nor for the vegetable cell or germ, seed, life, or plant; 
nor for the animal, cell, germ, life, or organization. It can 
not account for the organization, growth, and reproduction of 
either. It can not account for sensation, instinct, understand- 
ing, reason, volition, moral and religious nature and intuitions. 
It can not account for the simplest cell of the crudest proto- 
plasm of which it says so much, much less the infinitely higher 
developments of nature, immeasurably above it. 

We will now call attention to another radical defect in 
evolution. Its fundamental axiom is, " Out of nothing, noth- 
ing comes." Now, all life, all possibilities of life, all basis of 
life, sensation, instinct, reason, and moral and religious nature, 
were in the original star-dust or fire-mist, or they were not. 
To say that they were present, in any sense, in chaotic fire- 
mist, destitute of even the essential properties of matter and 
force, or at least destitute of all co-ordination and adaptation, 
is simply an insult to all common sense. Take the most won- 
derful piece of inorganic matter in the universe, no matter 
how wonderful and beautiful its chemical organization and 
properties, and ask reason and common sense, if you dare, 
if there is in it latent life, sensation, instinct, reason, and 
moral and religious nature; if the life, intellect, spiritual 
nature, and capacities of a Milton are latent in it. They are 
not present in inorganic matter, either latent or potentially. 
Then, to say that they are evolved out of what does not 
contain them, is a violation of the axiom, for it evolves the 
most wonderful being in the universe out of what does not 
contain it, or the most wonderful being in the universe out 
of nothing. Not only so, but it makes the pui'poseless, aim- 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 133 

less workings of blind, insensate matter and blind, irrational 
force evolve what is not in themselves, and what is infinitely 
above them. It makes nothing create the infinite. In in- 
finite mind alone is life, sensation, and reason, and infinite 
mind alone furnishes sufi^cient ground for them. But in 
matter and force there is no ground or rational basis for a 
surmise of them. 

But suppose we concede, in violation of all common sense, 
that there is latent nascent plastic life, sensation, instinct, 
reason, and moral and religious nature in fire-mist, in chem- 
ical compounds, in inorganic matter, waiting for evolution, 
whence comes this wonderful evolution? What are the 
means of this wonderful evolution ? Is it the organization of 
matter ? Whence come this wonderful organization of matter ? 
How came matter to be so wonderfully organized ? Evolution 
can only say it is the result of the action of force ; and when 
challenged to account for so wonderful a manifestation of force, 
it tells us, in turn, that this wonderful manifestation of force 
was caused by its own effect, the Avonderful organization of 
matter. It is like the clown who believed what the church 
believed, and the church believed what he believed, and he 
and the church both believed the same thing. There is just as 
much explanation of the phenomena of being in evolution as 
there was explanation of what the clown believed, and no 
more. Wonderful organization of matter caused the wonder- 
ful manifestation of force, and the wonderful manifestation of 
force caused the wonderful organization of matter, and they 
both caused each other. Each cause is the eflJect of its efiTect, 
and each effect is the cause of its cause. In thus assuming 
that all life, reason, and moral and religious nature have been 
eternally potentially present in matter, as did Tyndall in his 
Belfast speech, the evolutionist makes a god, an infinite fetich, 
out of matter, and gives to it all that he refuses to accept in 
Infinite Mind ; and does this in violation of all reason, which 
declares that matter has not these existences in it, and that 
mind is the only possible ground for them. Reason will de- 
mand, whence came life, sensation, insthict, reason, moral and 
r"1ii;ious nature? AVere they in star-dust? It is an insult to 



134 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

common sense to say so. if not in it, they could not be evol- 
ved out of it, for out of nothing, nothing comes. If added to 
it, from whence, and by what? If you say conditions, it is 
but a phrase to cover ignorance, for conditions create or cause 
nothing. They may modify, but they can not create. Tiiey 
permit that to exist which has a being from an adequate cause, 
but they cause nothing. 

As a sort of review of our reasoning so far, we will call atten- 
tion to a fundamental fallacy pervading the entire process of 
reasoning of the physicist. When he meets with one of these 
objections to his hypothesis, or failures in his explanation, in- 
stead of meeting them frankly he invariably evades them. It 
is done in various ways. A favorite artifice is to direct atten- 
tion from the phenomenon that he is challenged to explain, to 
another which he claims is just like it. He explains the second, 
and then claims, since they are similar, he has explained the 
first. A careful examination will show that, by the change, he 
has evaded the very point at issue, and his examination of the 
second phenomenon never touched the point at issue. An- 
other favorite evasion is to substitute something else for the 
real issue, and cut down the man of straw of his own con- 
struction, and leave the issue untouched. Another is to spend 
a great deal of time over minor points that need no explana- 
tion, and by a multitude of words over them, obscure the real 
issue, and claim that he has explained the diflSculty, when he 
has only hid it out of sight in his verbiage. Another is to 
boldly assume all the real difficulties in the problem, and then 
talk of what needs no explanation. Darwin does this in his 
hypothesis. Another is to cover up failures by high-sounding- 
phrases, or to offer high-sounding, swelling phrases as explana- 
tions ; such as conditions, natural selection, survival of fittest, 
and heterogeneity and homogeneity. At best they are but 
names for the results of a process, and contain not a shadow 
of explanation of the process. Another is to re-state the diffi- 
culty in such a way as to leave out all that is vital and diffi- 
cult, and then display great skill in answering what was not 
presented. Another is to state the objection or difficulty in 
such a wav as to caricature it or render it absurd, and then 



"FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 1 35 

ridicule it, or call it some fearful name, such as anthropomor- 
phism. If the one investigating these speculations will reso- 
lutely hold before his mind the real demands of the problem, 
and strip the efforts of the evolutionist of the above evasions, 
there will be no difficulty in seeing at a glance the utter shal- 
lowness of all these speculations. 

Evolution can not account for the various species of ani- 
mals and plants. We need not examine the various theories 
of evolutionists to account for the genesis of species. We need 
only examine the hypothesis of Darwin ; for it is now the 
main, and, in fact, almost the sole reliance of the evolutionist to 
account for the origin of species, and in reviewing it we pre- 
sent a review of the main features of the others. We shall 
compare this speculation with the demands of the problem, and 
test its sufficiency to solve the problem. We are troubled, not 
with scarcity of objections and arguments, but with the mass 
of materials to be used. A lawyer was once employed to de- 
fend a man who was charged with borrowing a kettle and re- 
fusing to return it. He announced that he expected to prove: 
1. That the plaintiff never had a kettle. 2. That the defend- 
ant never borrowed his kettle. 3. That he had already re- 
turned the kettle. 4. He had paid for the kettle. 5. The 
kettle was worthless, and there was no loss to the plaintiff. As 
strong a case can be truthfully made out against Darwin's hy- 
pothesis. Our first objection is, that it is at best but an hy- 
pothesis, a mere guess. No one, when challenged directly, can 
claim more than this for it, although practically evolutionists 
use it as fundamental, demonstrated truth. They boldly ask 
us to cast overboard the intuitions of our nature and faith, 
and cherished views of years, for this mere guess. The best 
answer to be made to so arrogant and impudent a claim is to 
ask, Is Darwin's hypothesis more than a hypothesis — a mere 
guess? But we are told it will account for the phenomena, 
and therefore we ought to accept it. 

We shall show, before we are done, that it will not account 
for a single one. But even if a hypothesis will account for the 
phenomena, we are not bound to accept it, much less risk 
priceless interests on it. No one has given a satisfactory ex- 



136 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

planation of the phenomena of the aurora borealis. The In- 
dian says that it is the spirits of his ancestors, dancing in the 
happy hunting-grounds, and that they are luminous. This 
hypothesis will explain all the phenomena, and yet who will 
accept it ? It is as plausible and rational as Darwin's hypotli- 
esis. Here we might stop. When we have said that it is at 
best a guess, we have banished it from the realms of scientific 
reasoning. It can be made the basis of not even the simplest 
scientific statement. A lawyer once informed the court that 
he had twelve reasons why he could not produce a certain wit- 
ness: 1. He is dead. "That will do," said the judge, "you 
need not give the other eleven reasons." So when we have 
stated that its advocates can only claim that it is a guess, we 
might dismiss it without further thought. 

Another objection that we urge is the use that is now be- 
ing made of it. It is brought forward as the explanation of 
the origin of life and species and all varieties of animal and 
vegetable life. When assailed and disproved, the evolutionist 
coolly tells you it is a mere hypothesis, and he claims no more 
for it. Ask him a moment after, how, in his theory of athe- 
istic evolution, he accounts for life, species, and varieties, and 
he will give you Darwin's tlieory as coolly as though it were 
not disproved, and as though he had not abandoned it. I 
know of one prominent infidel champion who lectures on it, 
and offers it as a scientific solution of life and species ; and yet, 
when cliallenged to affirm it in discussion, he backs down, 
and says no one claims that it is more than mere hypothesis. 
The force of this objection is rendered overwhelming when we 
con-ider that the hypjtiiesis assumes the difficulties of evolu- 
tion. It quietly assumes them as a basis of the hypothesis. 
It is silent concerning the origin of matter and force ; the 
original elements of matter; the essential properties of mat- 
ter; the origin of physical forces; the essential properties and 
manifestations of tliese forces; the co-ordination; the primor- 
dial constitution of matter and force ; chemical compounds and 
crystallization. It has not a word on that insoluble enigma 
the origin of life, and, strange to say, evolutionists use it for 
til is ver\' purpose. Darwin makes no attempt to account for 



FAILUEES OP EVOLUTION. 137 

the origin of life. He assumes it. He makes no attempt to 
account for the primordial germ. He assumes its exist- 
ence. He makes no attempt to accouut for its properties 
of organization, growth, and reproduction. He assumes all 
these. He makes no atempt to account for the different con- 
ditions he supposes surround his primordial germ. * He as- 
sumes them as influencing these germs. He makes no at- 
tempt to account for the adaptation to diflferent conditions, or for 
the power of adaptation to different conditions in the germs. 
He assumes all this wonderful adaptation, or the power of 
adaptation. He assumes that conditions produce new charac- 
teristics, when they are not causes at all. They may permit 
what already exists to continue, but they create nothing. In 
all this we have, step by step, an assumption of the whole 
problem. He assumes the law of heredity that preserves 
these new characteristics. Conditions produce new character- 
istics in violation of the law of heredity, and then the law of 
heredity proves too strong for the conditions, and preserves 
these new characteristics. The law^ of heredity is like the 
Irishman's aim at the calf He aimed so as to hit if it was 
a deer, and miss if it was a calf. So the law of heredity 
misses the old characteristics, but always hits the new ones. 

Before we can accept Darwin's hypothesis as even a working 
hypothesis, we must assume the following things as facts. If 
either be disproved, the hypothesis is worthless. 

I. All elementary substances must be convertible or identi- 
cal, to render possible the almost infinite variations that his 
theory claims. Chemistry utterly denies this. A chemist 
would laugh at it as an absurdity, the claim that iron can be 
transmuted into gold. Darwinism sustains about the same 
relation to biology, that alchemy did to chemistry, and it will 
take its place with alchemy and astrology. 

II. These different conditions must always give improve- 
ments. The variations must always be in one direction, from 
simple to complex, from lower to higher, from useless to useful. 

III. The change must be continually and infinitely in that 
direction. The changes must be limitless and infinite, con- 
tinually in an upward direction. 

12 



138 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

IV. Variations must give greater capacity for struggle for 
life, greater power to survive. 

V. Or there must be something in nature that conserves 
and preserves the fittest, the highest, the complex, the useful, 
the beautiful, 

VI. That at some time in the develo})ment, there must be 
produced out of what had no sex that which had sex. 

VII. That there be produced at the same time, and in the 
same place, two of opposite sexes, out of what had no sex, and 
that they unite only with each other in sexual intercourse. 

VIII. That whenever an improvement occurs, there be 
produced two of opposite sexes, in the same place, and at the 
same time, having the same improvements, and that they and 
their posterity unite only with those having this improvement. 
In no other way could the law of heredity preserve improve- 
ments. 

IX. Or that in each case in tlie case of the introduction of 
sex, and in the case of every new improvement, vast numbers 
be produced, and they and their descendants unite with each 
other, or those having these improvements. 

X. One or the other of these alternatives would have to 
occur an almost infinite number of times during the course of 
development. It would have to occur in each improvement, 
in each species, and variation. How could this happen with- 
out the oversight and control of intelligence? 

XI. There must be given an almost illimitable time for 
this evolution. The time is so long, and the change so im- 
perceptible, as to be practically beyond human knowledge or 
experience. 

XII. Lastly, that there be a co-ordination and adjustment 
of conditions, and a correlation of variations, during this al- 
most infinite time, to secure the continual and continued as- 
cent in one direction. Such are the demands of this hypo- 
thesis. As we have repeatedly urged, it assumes all that is 
vital, and assumes all the difficulties, and all that especially 
needs explanation. 

Let us now examine these wonderful germs. All life and 
possibilities of life must have been in each germ, or different 



FAII.URES OF EVOLUTION. 139 

manifestations of life in different germs. If different mani- 
festations of life in different germs, whence came the differ- 
ence? Then snitable conditions must have surrounded each 
germ, or there was power in each germ to adapt itself to con- 
ditions. Whence came this adaptation to conditions, or this 
power of adaptation to conditions? If the same life, but adapt- 
ability to all conditions, existed in each germ, and all possi- 
bilities of life, whence came this wonderful adaptability, and 
these wonderful possibilities? If the same life and conditions 
in each germ, whence came the difference of development? 
All life, all possibilities of life, and all conditions, must have 
existed in and around each germ, and adaptation to all con- 
ditions. Also conditions, adaptations and possibilities, so that 
at the same time, and in the same place, may be evolved out 
of what has no sex, and yet contains what has sex, two of op- 
posite sexes. And as often as conditions evolve an improve- 
ment, two of opposite sexes must be evolved possessing the 
same improvement, and these must be repeated as often as 
there is an improvement evolved. These must associate with 
each other, and so must their posterity. Such a number of 
such coincidences, as must have occurred in the course of 
evolution of all animals and plants during the countless ages 
required by evolution, are inconceivable. Again, when it is 
said that conditions produce the variations, things are assumed 
to be causes that have not one particle of causal efficiency in 
them. The thhig varied must exist. Conditions do not cre- 
ate it. The capacity to vary must exist. Conditions do not 
create it. The conditions do not cause the variations. They 
merely permit the variations to be made. There is no causal 
efficiency in the conditions to which Darwinism appeals, as 
the cause of all variations. Survival of the fittest is not a 
cause. It expresses the result of a cause, and not a cause. 
It expresses the result of a process, and is not a factor in the 
process. It is a result co-ordinated with certain physical con- 
ditions. Conditions are not efficient causes. They can, at 
most, be but instrumental causes. They permit causes to act, 
but are not causes themselves. 

Another objection can be made to the use made of physical 



140 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

forces in the theory of evolution. Physical forces are con- 
stant, definite quantities. They can produce but one constant 
result. Should the same force operate throughout eternity, 
it can produce no different result, and no more than at first. 
Evolution is a progressively varying, and an increasingly 
varying result, and it varies also in the nature of the result. 
New and higher nature is supposed to be evolved all the 
time. How can a constant and fixed quantity produce an 
increasingly and progressively varying result, and one chang- 
ing in nature all the time? In the case of man, we can see 
how he can produce greater results as he increases in power. 
We can see also how he can produce results differing in na- 
ture, as he acquires different power. But we can not predi- 
cate the same of forces or causes constant in quautity and un- 
changing in nature. Here is a fatal defect in the theory of 
evolution. It ascribes progressively and increasingly varying 
results, that are constantly changing in nature, to constant 
fixed quantities, whose nature ever remains the same. Again, 
physical causes produce movements in cycles, as the course of 
water in the ocean, the vapor, the cloud, the rain, and the 
ocean again. They never produce an indefinite ascending 
progression, for this Avould be to violate the physicist's maxim, 
for it makes them evolve what was not in them, both in quan- 
tity and quality. The attempt to evade this, by assuming 
cycles in evolution of the universe, is a preposterous assump- 
tion, for which there is not one particle of proof. Again, 
the objection would remain valid within that cycle, that it 
makes constant quantities produce increasing and different re- 
sults. 

Darwin's hypothesis will merely account for the survival of 
new characteristics when produced. They survived because 
conditions favored such survival. This is no explanation of 
what caused the new characteristics. The theory shows that 
conditions preserved the work of the causes, but does not give 
a hint of the causes. Then the results are so varied, so con- 
tradictory, and so inexplicable often, that Darwin himself 
confesses that but little stress can be laid on conditions of 
life to account for variations. When he confesses this he 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 141 

yields the whole theory ; for the gist of the theory is, that con- 
ditions have produced all varieties of animal and vegetable 
life. Reason demands what power raised the plant from in- 
organic matter, the animal from the plant, and man from the 
animal. Whence came organization, sensation, instinct and 
reason? Were they in the fire-mist, or added? If you say 
in the fire-mist, you insult common sense. If you say added, 
reason asks whence and by whom? If you say conditions 
evolved them, you cover up ignorance or evasion, by a conven- 
ient phrase. Conditions may modify, but they can not cre- 
ate. The evolutionist often covers up his failures by conven- 
ient expressions, and endeavors to cheat us by sonorous 
phrases. He talks much of the "laws of nature" and "the 
nature of things." We are told that the laws of nature pro- 
duced certain results, and that they are the result of the na- 
ture of things. No doubt things have a nature, and doubt- 
less all are in accordance with law. But when the evolutionist 
talks about the laws of nature, giving existence to that nature 
in which they inhere, and without the existence of which they 
could not exist, or of the nature of things giving a nature to 
things, he confounds cause and effect. We might as well 
talk of a man's conduct giving him an existence. 

The same vagueness pervades Darwin's entire use of the 
terms — natural selection, sexual selection. They are merely 
results and not causes. They are results in a process, and 
not factors in the process. If Darwin were to be compelled 
to define these terms, and to state definitely what he could 
attribute to them, he would be compelled to exclude the 
greater part of what he now attributes to them, and certainly 
all the important part. Let the evolutionist be compelled 
to define clearly what he means by these terms, and state 
definitely what he can attribute to them, and nine-tenths of 
what he attempts to cover up by them, and a still larger pro- 
portion of what he attempts to account for by means of them, 
would be removed out of their reach. 

Another juggle with words is found in the terms creation 
by law, and creative law, now so constantly on the tongue 
of the evolutionist. If these expressions merely mean that 



142 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

creation was in accordance with law, in accordance witli rea- 
son, will, and the attributes of the Divine mind, no one wil. 
object. But if it means that the law creates, we ask, "is 
law a force, a creative power?" Law is merely the manner 
in which the force acts. Creative law merely means the man- 
ner in which creative power was exercised. Then we would 
ask the evolutionist, who is so continually parading creative 
law, and creation by law, as the solution of all things, Is the 
law that which creates, or is it merely the manner in which 
the creative power acts ^^ If used in the former sense, it is 
the veriest jugglery with words. If in the latter, there is 
no cause of creation — explanation of the cause of creation in 
it. A most palpable illustration of this jugglery with words 
is found in Wallace's attempt to account for the fertilization 
of certain plants by insects who carry the pollen from oiie 
sex to the other. There are such evidences of design in the 
whole process, especially in the gins, traps, and springs in tlie 
plant, to compel the insect to do the work, that design by 
creative intelligence is the first thought by every mind. Wal- 
lace asks, why not creation by law or creative law produce such 
a result without a direct act of creative intelligence? We 
reply by asking, How can an order of acting, or an order in 
which the forces of nature act, produce any thing? Above all, 
how can an order of acting produce a different order of act- 
ing, as he supposes in this case, and especially one so new, so 
different, and so opposed to the former order which is sup- 
posed to produce it? All talk about creation by law, or of 
creative law, in the sense of law being the efficient cause of 
creation, is nonsense, for law^ is merely the manner in which 
creative force acts ; and a manner of acting can not produce a 
different manner of acting, or that which acts in a different 
manner. 

Then that which creates must be something different from 
the law, for that only expresses how that which creates acts. 
We must either assume that matter and force have creative 
energy, or that it is back of, and above matter and force, and 
acts on and through them. We have already repeatedly 
shown that the first assumption is absurd; but even if we con- 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 143 

cede that matter and force have creative energy controlled by 
law, whence came this creative energy, and whence came this 
wonderful law that rules it. The highest conceptions of rea- 
son are realized in this energy and in the law that controls 
its action. Who made this law, for law is but the expression 
of the reason and will of mind ? When we speak of the laws 
of nature, reason demands who made the laws? The term 
law, necessitates the existence of mind, of whose reason and 
will the law is an expression. In asserting direct creation by 
intelligence, we do not affirm incessant interference, nor set to 
one side the regulative influence of law in creation. God 
creates, and in a course of development, but is ever present 
in the development, and acts in accordance with law, the 
highest law — law of infinite reason. We admit that law in- 
cludes the universe in its domain, but the question is, W^hat 
kind of law? Is it a law of blind, fatal necessity, such an 
application of the term law to the ongoings of mere matter 
and force would imply? Or is it a law of rational action, a 
law of intelligence? In prayer and providence there is law, 
a law of rational intelligence. Invariableness of law, when 
used in a rational sense, does not preclude the idea of purpose 
and will. On the contrary, it is necessary to render the 
forces controlled by this law susceptible of being used by in- 
telligence and will, for it renders certain the residt. Laws 
of nature are rendered subservient to the purposes of mind 
and will by varying the conditions, and using other laws and 
mechanical appliances. Man does this, and in this way 
renders subservient to his purposes this invariability. The 
same thing is done all through nature. The greatest strength 
of material, with the greatest lightness is secured in the hol- 
low tubular bone of the bird, as in the tubular bridge, or 
hollow columns. Intelligence used the laws of nature to 
render subservient to purpose other laws of nature. 

Another fundamental objection to evolution and Darwinism 
is, that they violate all inductive philosophy. They do not 
investigate the wonderful and unique domain of rational, 
moral, religious and spiritual phenomena, and reason from 
the phenomena to the cause. The evolutionist either refuses 



144 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

to recognize the existence of such a domain of phenomena, or 
refuses to investigate ; or he assumes, in violation of all sense, 
that they are identical with physical phenomena ; or, in vio- 
lation of all reason, lie applies to them the results and reason- 
ings of the physical world, so radically different. Nature is 
used in the narrow and low sense of mere physical nature 
alone. In investigating nature we have man's rational, mor- 
al, religious and spiritual nature and ideas, and all they sug- 
gest, as the highest element of nature and means in investiga- 
tion. The evolutionist usually denies will and even spontane- 
ity in nature, even man himself. Tyndall did this in one of 
his lectures. There was no spontaneity in the lecturer, in his 
choice of subject, in his choice of materials for experiments, 
in his choice of words to express his thoughts. Closely allied 
to this is the objection that Darwinism and evolution ignore 
entirely all religion, morality and reason, all moral, mental 
and religious causation. The only conditions they recognize 
are physical conditions. They overlook reason, morality and 
religion as factors in evolution, and the highest factors. 
Spencer's system of evolution is defective in this particular. 
He overlooks entirely all intelligent data and factors of evolu- 
tion ; or he overlooks the difference between them and unin- 
telligent factors. He tacitly attributes all to unintelligent 
factors. His external and internal factors of evolution are 
not even forces but the way in which forces act. Homogen- 
eity, heterogeneity, integration and differentiation are not 
farces or causes, but terms expressing how forces and causes 
act. He attempts to cover the nakedness of his system with 
these words of amazing length and thundering sound, and to 
cheat his reader into a belief that he has given an explana- 
tion and a cause for the evolution, as Martinus Scribblerus 
accounted for the roasting jack roasting meat : '* It roasted 
meat in consequence of an inherent meat-roasting property of 
the jack"! 

Another objection is that physical science can not settle the 
question of absolute creation. Physical science can only set- 
tle questions concerning phenomena that it observes, and can 
Absolute creation is a phenomenon that has 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 145 

never come within the observation of physical science. It 
has only observed derivative creation through reproduction. 
It can only investigate the phenomena of nature and learn 
their characteristics. In doing this it must use the funda- 
mental principles of reason, as its basis and guide ; and when 
it has placed before reason the phenomena and characteristics 
it has accomplished its work. Reason must, from the nature 
and characteristics of the phenomena, settle the question of 
absolute creation. The question of absolute creation must be 
settled by reason and religion ; by the rational and relig- 
ious portion of man's nature. It is conceding to physical 
science what is utterly out of its province, to concede to it, 
the power to settle the question of absolute creation. Phys- 
ical science can investigate the stomach of the murdered 
man, and detect poison ; but the question of who placed it 
there and the character of the act form no part of the prov- 
ince of physical science. Let physical science go on reveal- 
ing phenomena and their characteristics, but reason must de- 
cide from what is thus furnished to it their cause and the 
character of the cause. 

Most all the objections that the evolutionist urges to the idea 
of creation are the results of derivative creation, and not of 
absolute creation. The perversions of animals and forces of 
nature by man and the infelicities seen in nature, are a part of 
derivative creation, and not of absolute creation. They result 
often from the abuse of the freedom given to man, and are nec- 
essary to such a state of freedom. Belief in God's creative ener- 
gy and action does not rest on physical grounds. It can not be 
tested by them, or disproved by them. It rests on primary intu- 
itions of the reason. Physical facts can not disprove these intui- 
tions or the belief resting on them, for they do not rest on phys- 
ical facts. Physical facts can not test them . Physical science can 
decide the qualities of the parts or the whole, but it can not test 
or disprove the axiom that tlie sum of the parts equals the whole. 
Belief in God's creative energj'- and action no more rests on 
physical grounds than tlie above axiom rests on the nature of 
the parts or the whole. Wheu we call the attention of the 
evolutiouist to the wonderful cliaracter of tl.-^ course of evolu- 
13 



146 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

tion, he attempts to evade it by calling attention to the won- 
derful character of the process of reproduction, — the evolution 
or development of man out of .a microscopic animalcula that 
unites with a mere speck of albuminous matter. But the 
cases are not analogous. The evolution of a new species is 
a hypothesis of something of which no one has had any ex- 
perience, in any age in a single instance. The other is a fact of 
daily experience in thousands of cases for thousands of years. 
In one case all that is evolved is in the germ, however minute, 
and we know the result has been evolved out of it. In the 
other we have no knowledge that the result was potentially in 
the beginning. It can not be proved to be there, and it is an 
insult to common sense to say it is there. We have no expe- 
rience of its being evolved out of the starting point, and know 
nothing of the process, not even its mode of acting. 

We now reiterate a thought already suggested. We can 
not allow the words "science," "practical science," "practical 
knowledge," and "verification," to be narrowed and perverted 
until destroyed. We can not allow the rational part of our 
nature to be discarded, nor permit the fundamental intuitions 
and ideas of our nature to be ignored and cast to one side, or 
sneered out of existence as metaphysics. The regulative ideas 
and principles of all departments of science, thought, and in- 
vestigation are metaphysical, are metaphysical conceptions 
above and beyond all mere phenomena. We can not think 
or reason on phenomena, or classify them, or take one step in 
science without them. Metaphysical ideas or intuitions impel 
us to investigate phenomena. Metaphysical ideas or concep- 
tions are our scle means of determining their characteristics. 
Metaphysical conceptions enable us to generalize and classify 
them. The physicist generalizes his phenomena, and classifies 
them in accordance with ideal conceptions. He can not in- 
vestigate without basing his investigations on ideal concep- 
tions. His examination of phenomena is conducted by meta- 
physical analysis. All his comparisons, deductions, anticipa- 
tions, speculations, and reasonings are metaphysical. Lewes 
admits this, and says that science is compelled to classify, 
arrange, and co-ordinate all facts into a general system by 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 147 

means of ideal concepts. He calls this necessity an infirmity 
of the mind. In so doing he perverts reason to dethrone 
reason. The infirmity is in the perversion of reason that re- 
jects this catholic tendency of the mind to save a system of 
speculation. The same perversion of reason is seen in the 
attempt to cast to one side all the regulative ideas of reason 
that have been recognized for thousands of years. Phenomena 
are stripped of all connecting links of thought, all correlating 
ideas of reason. Science is rendered impossible, and philos- 
ophy a chimera. It is impossible for man to move one step 
in scientific investigation without the rational ideas of plan, 
system, method, law, adaptation, co-ordination, design, pre- 
vision and provision. Back of all ideas of force and phenom- 
ena, lie the ideas of co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation 
of them, for what follows. When a man goes so far as to 
relegate all ideas of force, and every thing connected with it, 
except numerical relations, and finally even numbers them- 
selves, to metaphysics, and then claim that they are no part 
of real science or practical knowledge, he has abdicated all 
use of reason, and stripped reason of the only means it pos- 
sesses of working. We can not allow a vast atrocious system 
of the most abstruse and abstract metaphysical reasoning to 
tear down all metaphysical conceptions, and then conunit 
suicide by destroying metaphysics, to cap the climax of ab- 
surdity. No reasoning is so metaphysical as that of these 
physicists, who so denounce metaphysics. It is the worst kind 
of metaphysics, and the most perverted. 

Another objection to the speculations of the evolutionist is 
his absurd denial of all teleology in the processes of nature. 
From the time the first mind observed the phenomena of 
nature, until the present, every rational mind, except a few 
like the evolutionist, who abdicate all reason, has recognized 
order, co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation in the con^ 
stitution, processes and phenomena of nature, exhibiting pur- 
pose, design and plan, with system and method, showing pre- 
vision of, and provision for, all that occurs, all governed by 
law expressing the highest conceptions of reason. To evade 
the inevitable conclusion that all these have their necessary 



148 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

and only conceivable ground in mind, and the only legiti- 
mate conclusion that there is an intelligent Creator, the evo- 
lutionist denies all teleology in nature. There is but one 
parallel case of as mad negation of reason in history. Pyrrho 
of Elsea denied that there was any thing real in existence, 
and carried his madness so far that his friends had to keep 
guard over him to save his life. He would have walked 
over a precipice, saying it was merely imaginary. Just as 
his imaginary precipice would have broken his real neck, so 
the denial of teleology, by the physicist, breaks his mental 
neck, and renders him incapable of reasoning, or being rea- 
soned with. Theism and common sense says an organ exists 
in certain conditions, because it was made for the conditions, 
and adapted to them. Darwinism says that somehoiv an or- 
gan exists in certain conditions, because out of many it was 
somehow able to persist in the conditions, in which it somehow 
happened to be. Teleology and common sense says every or- 
gan and function is a rifle bullet, fired by intelligence at a 
mark, the end designed, or purpose for which the organ or 
functions w^as planned. Experience ^lays that it hit the 
mark every time, as infinite intelligence would certainly do. 
Darwinism says each organ and function is a grapeshot, and 
one of an infinite series of volleys of grapeshot, fired some- 
how, no one knows how, at no object whatever, for there is 
no design or purpose in nature, and one after another in the 
infinite series happened, somehow, one don't know how, to hit 
something, and somehoiv, we don't know how, results were 
produced, and somehoiv, we don't know how, these results 
were connected in ascending series, that somehow, we don't 
know, ascends from lower to higher, from simple to complex, 
and from useless to useful. Darwinism may deny the above 
statement, but it is perfectly correct, unless it recognizes 
teleology or design in nature. Common sense will inquire: 
Why Avas there any thing to be fired? Why was it fired? 
How came any of them to hit something? Why was there 
something for it to hit? What was that something hit? 
Why does hitting that something produce an effect, especi- 
ally in the direction of improvement? Why does any, in 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 149 

the infinite series, hit the same something? Why produce 
the same effect? Above all, why produce an increasingly 
varying effect? Wliy are the effects so related in kind and 
order and succession, as to produce an ascending series, from 
lower to higher, from simple to complex, from useless to use- 
ful? Why are the results perpetuated and co-ordinated? 
Darwinism says that the most wonderful, intricate and com- 
plex apparatus was thoroughly adapted to the most wonder- 
ful ends by trial and failure, by unintelligent forces. Or, 
rather, the most wonderful apparatus, thoroughly adapted, 
w^as produced without trial or purpose, by the aimless and 
purposeless fortuitous workings, defective workings of blind, 
insensate matter and blind, irrational force ? Common sense 
asks : Do blind forces ever try ? Can any thing result where 
there is no trial to do any thing? Do blind forces correct 
defects, errors, or failures? Could they improve? Could 
they retain improvements ? 

The utter absurdity and fatuity of attempting to deny tele- 
ology in nature, is seen in the continual use that Darwin and 
other evolutionists are compelled to make of teleological 
terms, in describing nature and the processes of nature. The 
evolutionist can not describe a single organ, function or pro- 
cess of nature without using teleological terms. In Dai'win's 
descriptions of animals and plants, he continually speaks of 
"admirable contrivances," "w^onderful design," "admirable 
machines," of "gins," "traps," "spring guns," and "ma- 
chines," and exhausts the teleological vocabulary, and then 
assures us that he fails to express all that he observes. Take 
the case of certain flowers, the orchids of Madagascar. They 
are fertilized only by certain moths, that carry on their bod- 
ies the pollen from one sex to the other. There are most ad- 
mirable contrivances for luring the moth into the nectary of 
the plant. Then there are admirably contrived spring guns 
that project the pollen on the moth. Then the nectaries of 
these orchids are remarkably long, and the moths have a cor- 
respondingly long proboscis. Reason asks, how came these 
orchids with these remarkably long nectaries? Above all, how 
came the moths to have proboscises corresponding with the 



150 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

nectary ? How came the orchids to be dependent on such an 
almost unimagmable contrivance for fertilization? Evolution 
says certain flowers happened to have unusually long necta- 
ries ; and moths, in striving to reach into the nectaries, elonga- 
ted their proboscises, and flowers and moths continued this 
process in one direction until we have these results. It has no 
answer for the query, How came the flowers to be dependent 
on such a contrivance for fertilization ? Except Wallace's sub- 
terfuge, it is the result of creation by law. But reason asks, 
How came the orchids with unusually longer nectary? Here 
we have conditions doing what they never did before. Why 
did not the moths leave them for other flowers? Why not 
the moths perpetuate smaller* flowers adapted to them ? Why 
should nectaries keep growing longer? Why any feature, and 
what feature, persist in existence ? Why not stop ? Why not 
be lost ? Evolution has not an answer to all this. Again, the 
worthlessness of the theory can be seen in the fact, that it 
accounts just as well for opposite results from the same con- 
ditions had they come up for explanation. It applies equally 
well to the most contradictory cases, and from the same condi- 
tions. It is like a slop-shop coat. It fits every body, one as 
well as another, and fits nobody. Such speculations fit one 
case as Avell as another, and are utterly worthless to explain 
any. 

Wallace admits that Darwin has to use teleological lan- 
guage in describing nature, and that he does himself; but 
attempts to evade the only logical conclusion that there is tel- 
eology in nature, by saying it is metaphorical and an infirmity 
of thought. Grant that the language is metaphorical for a 
moment; it does not remove the idea of teleology in nature. 
There must be teleology in nature, as there is in man's oper- 
ations — there must be similar features in them, teleological 
features, or the metaphorical language could not be used; 
and would not be demanded by the nature of the case. But it 
is not metaphorical, nor is it an infirmity of thought. I won- 
der what the evolutionist will leave to us of our rational ideas 
and conceptions when he has disposed of all infirmities of 
thought. In describhig the processes of nature, the evolution- 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 151 

ist invariably uses teleological language and in speaking of 
the operations of wlmt lie calls the laws of nature, he invari- 
ably anthropomorphizes them ; or he applies to these opera- 
tions the terms he uses in describing man's operations. This 
is not an infirmity of thought but a necessity of truth. The 
processes of nature, and the operation of its laws and forces, 
contain as their fundamental characteristics the same feat- 
ures, that in man's operations we call co-ordination, adjust- 
ment, design, plan, system, with prevision and provision. The 
evolutionist can not describe nature without recognizing these 
characteristics, and using these terms. Man in so doing, does 
not, by an inlirmity of thought, project himself into nature. 
He merely recognizes, of necessity, the fundamental charac- 
teristics of intelligent operations in man's works and the pro- 
cesses of nature. Then, by the language of the evolutionist, 
when describing nature, and in his attempts to disprove tele- 
ology, do we establish teleology in nature. Reason says the- 
design must have had a designer. So palpably is this the 
case, that evolutionists intuitively ascribe the rudest imple- 
ment in a cave to intelligence. They do not ascribe for one 
moment, the rudest splinter of flint to natural forces. But 
that wonderful instrument — the eye — was the result of blind, 
irrational forces, working without plan or purpose. 

Common sense says evolution must have had an evolver. 
Self-evolution, spontaneous evolution by blind, insensate mat- 
ter and blind, irrational force, in their aimless and purpose- 
less ongoings, is a caricature on common sense. Evolution 
without plan, aim or purpose is equally absurd. If the evo- 
lutionist'demands why we ascribe purpose and design to organs 
and functions, we reply, because intuition and common sense 
does so, and always has done so. The evolutionist himself 
can not describe them without doing so, or speak of them 
without doing so, even in his attempt to disprove design. 
When we have traced matter and force back to the crudest 
conception we can have of them, we have to place mind 
back of them to co-ordinate and adjust them, and adapt them 
to this course of evolution. We have to look on them as co- 
ordinated and regulated bv mind and will, or to illicitlv en- 



152 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. * 

dow them with thought and will, by attributing to them what 
can be evolved by mind and will alone. Man learns to adjust 
and use the forces of nature. He learns the thought or idea 
by which they can be adjusted. The Infinite Mind adjusted 
them by infinite idea or thought. If it had not been so man 
could not adjust and use them, for he could not learn or ap- 
prehend the idea by which they are adjusted, and can be ad- 
justed. The evolutionist can not show that this course of 
nature is a path aloug which mind did not travel, and could 
not have traveled, except by showing that it is unideal and 
irrational. When he has done this, he has destroyed all sci- 
ence, and rendered science an impossibility. When the evo- 
lutionist has cast out of nature all idea of teleology, he has 
destroyed all science, and rendered all science impossible, and 
rendered all use of nature by human reason an impossibility. 
It is certainly a strange fatuity that those who claim to be 
par excellence scientific men, and who arrogate to themselves 
the work of explaining nature, should think that they can do 
so only by emptying the processes of nature of all reason and 
thought, all teleology. The processes of nature can be ap- 
prehended by reason only by showing that reason had nothing 
to do with them, and that they are irrational and unideal! 
Nor do we anthropomorphize God, in recognizing teleology in 
nature. Nor do we evade teleology, or explain it away, by 
shouting ''anthropomorphism," or that we make God in our 
own image and likeness. The evolutionist anthropomorphizes 
•the laws of nature, and anthropomorphizes God. He speaks 
of the processes of nature just as he does of man's operations, 
because they exhibit the same characteristics and evidences 
of mind. He anthropomorphizes God when he objects to the 
idea of God's doing certain things he finds in nature. He 
anthropomorphizes the Creator, and makes him like himself. 
He means, I would not have done so, hence God could not have 
done so — the very worst kind of anthropomorphism. Let us 
learn and accept Avhat is in nature, and not anthropomorphize 
God, by assuming what is not, in opposition to what is, as 
does the evolutionist. The evolutionist in anthropomor- 
phizing the processes of nature, proves that such a processf 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 153 

is legitimate and indeed unavoidable. The Absolute Mind 
is not necessarily radically and essentially different from finite 
mind, any more than absolute space must necessarily be rad- 
ically and essentially different from finite space. 

We have already called attention to the fact that, in the 
primordial constitution of matter and force, in the first con- 
stitution of the original elements of matter and its properties, 
the first constitution of force and its manifestations and prop- 
erties — in their numbers, proportions and relations, as to when, 
where, how long, how often, with what power, and in what 
order of succession, they shall act, in the figure of the planets 
and their orbits, and of systems in their relative densities, 
distances and masses and motions — in chemical action and 
crystallization — in the processes of nature in vegetable and 
animal life, there are realized the highest ideas of reason. 
After the research of thousands of years, man has scarcely 
entered the vestibule of this arcana of pure reason and 
thought! Evolution denies this, or refuses to recognize it, 
and attributes these infinite intellectual realizations, and the 
working out of these infinite rational ideas, to the aimless, 
purposeless workings of blind, irrational force, working with- 
out reason, idea or thought. Here is a radical error in the 
reasoning of the evolutionist. He attempts to strip what re- 
quires the highest efforts of reason, and taxes the highest ef- 
forts of thought even to apprehend it, of all connection with 
reason and thought. He can not even describe the processes 
of nature without exhausting the vocabulary of purely rational 
ideas, and yet he attempts to account for and explain the 
processes of nature without connecting them with reason and 
thought, and even denies all such connection. This suggests 
another palpable fallacy of the evolutionist. He denies all 
connection of mind with the processes of nature, yet such is 
the primordial constitution of things, and such the processes 
of nature in their characteristics and nature, that he can not 
speak of them without using terms recognizng their connec- 
tion with mind, and having their necessary and only conceiv- 
able ground in mind. Does he say fixed laws or processes? 
Who fixed the laws or processes? Does he say regular oi 



154 THE PROBLKM OF PROBLEMS. 

orderly laws or processes? Who regulated the laws or pro- 
cesses in this order? Does he say order of nature, plan of 
nature, system of nature, method of nature, or constitution of 
nature? Who gave to nature this order, plan, system, method 
or constitution? Who planned, ordered, systematized, meth- 
odized, or constituted nature? Does he say unchangeable, 
unalterable or invariable laws of nature? The expression im- 
plies co-ordination, adjustment and adaptatian in this unalter- 
able, unchanging and invariable mode of acting. Then when 
he speaks of the anticipations of nature for results to fol- 
low, of its previsions of, and provisions for, coming existences 
and phenomena, he speaks of what can be done only by mind, 
and has its only conceivable ground in mind. In all his 
speculations, he uses terms and ideas having their only con- 
ceivable ground in mind, because he can not describe nature 
without using them, and while doing so, senselessly denies the 
great truth necessarily implied in them. We have in our 
operations the control of force by intelligence and will. We 
have our terms expressive of such action. The correspond- 
ence there is between our own operations, which we know and 
speak of as controlled by mind, and the processes and laws of 
nature compells us to use the same terms, implying the oper- 
ation of reason and thought, in describing the processes of 
nature. Such, then, is the nature of the processes and laws 
of nature, and the evolutionist can not describe them with- 
out recognizing that they have their only conceivable ground 
in mind. 

Electricity controls muscles, but that by no means explains 
the mystery of life, or does away with spirit, any more than 
the electricity that passes along the wire will account for 
the message, or dispense with the operator. Huxley says, in 
regard to Paley's famous design argument, based on the 
watch: "If the watch could be conceived to be the product 
of a less perfect structure, improved by natural selection, then 
it would appear to be the result of a method of trial and error, 
worked by unintelligent forces." In the first place the sup- 
position can not be made. Natural selection, or, rather, blind 
irrational matter and force, don't improve. There would be 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 155 

no trial, for nothing is tried by unintelligent forces. There 
would be nothing to make the trial, for unintelligent forces 
do not try. There would be no error but a fortuitous work- 
ing, for there was no aim. There would be no method, but 
an aimless, purposeless outgoing of unintelligent forces. The 
constant advance in nature, if a correction of trial and error, 
proves design and purpose. The watch being unintelligent, 
does not exclude design in the intelligent use of unintelligent 
matter and force. Because results are attained, seemingly 
by unintelligent matter and force, does not exclude intelli- 
gence and design in co-ordinating, adjusting and adapting 
matter and force to secure the result. This error appears in 
every page of the speculations of the evolutionists on this 
topic. Because unintelligent matter and force in nature 
produce results, and evolutionists can point out what matter 
and force produced them, does not exclude design and intelli- 
gence in their adjustment, co-ordination, any more than point- 
ing out the form or process producing result in the watch 
excludes design in its production. It is no argument for the 
evolution of the watch that such forms exist, nor that it is in 
harmony with conditions, unless it be shown that conditions 
produce the watch, or are the causes of the adjustment of the 
watch. Nor should it be claimed that the watch be formed 
in an instant perfect and in motion, nor that law and order 
of nature were violated in making it, because nature did not 
make it ; nor, if made by machinery, that machinery shows 
that intelligence had nothing to do with it ; nor that the ma- 
chine must be like the watch — that is, that it varied but 
slightly from what produced it. All these blunders are made 
by the evolutionts in objecting to the theory of creation. 

Another most palpable absurdity of the speculations of the 
evolutionist, and one that runs through all his speculations, 
is this : He seems to think that an accurate description of 
the processes of nature is an explanation of what produces 
them, and why they operate in that manner. He mistakes 
a description of the law of a phenomenon, and its mode of 
acting, for an explanation of what causes the phenomenon. 
As well might we take a catalogue of the inventions of the 



156 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

Patent Office for an explanation of the machinery; or an ex- 
planation of how each machine operates, for an explanation of 
the force moving it ; or an explanation of the force for a his- 
tory of the inventor. Classifying phenomena and labeling 
them, and laying them up on shelves of learned phrases, as 
does the piiysicist, is not an explanation of the cause that pro- 
duced them. 80 an enumeration of the conditions in which 
the variations of animals and plants are produced is no ex- 
planation of what caused the variations. Even if conditions 
produced the variations, which is not the case, it is no ex- 
planation. The questions arise, " What caused the condi- 
tions? What gave to them this causal efficiency? What 
arranged them? What gave the life varied? What implant- 
ed the adaptation to conditions, or the power of adapting it- 
self to conditions ? " Survival of the fittest expresses a result 
and not a cause of a process. The real cause, the efficient 
cause, is not hinted in such a phrase, or in such expressions, 
except to deny common sense by denying all causation. If 
the reader of these speculations will ask, as he proceeds with 
his reading. How much of this is mere description of the 
manner of the process, and how much is an explanation of 
the cause of the process, and of this manner of process, he 
will find that there is not a syllable of explanation of the 
cause in them. 

We have already called attention to the failure of evolu- 
tion to account for life, sensation, instinct, reason, volition, 
thought, rational, moral and religious nature. The difficulty 
is now attempted to be evaded or hidden in a phrase lately in- 
vented, called "correlation offerees." It is stated: 

I. There are not many separate and distinct and even an- 
tagonistic forces as has been supposed. What seems to be 
such are but different manifestations of but one force. The 
differences in manifestation are caused by the difference of 
conditions under which the force is manifested. All these 
supposed different forces pass into each other, or into the one 
force. They can be changed into each other, and each has 
an equivalent in the other. Some include motion, heat, elec- 
tricity, gravity, chemical action, life, sensation, instinct, rea- 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 157 

son, volition, thought, and all rational and moral force or 
power, in this one force. They are but modifications or dif- 
ferent manifestations of this one force, and the difference in 
manifestation is occasioned by the difference of conditions un- 
der which it is manifested. One of the principal conditions, 
or causes of difference of manifestation, is the difference in 
organization or constitution of the matter in which or through 
which force is manifested. 

II. We know nothing of the real or ultimate nature of 
this one force. We can only observe its manifestations and 
their characteristics, and classify them; and when we have 
done this we have reached the utmost that can be achieved 
by science. 

Such, in brief, is the new speculation of the correlation of 
forces. Even if we admit this assumption of science, so called, 
it does not remove the difficulty that is pressed on the evolu- 
tionist : Whence came life, sensation, reason, thought ? We 
can establish, by an appeal to the observations and writings 
of the physicists themselves, the following positions : 

I. The nearest conception we can have of force, or the ulti- 
mate nature of force, is our consciousness of mental power in 
action, or of mind force. The next nearest conception is our 
consciousness of vital force or animal life, or animal life force 
in our bodies. 

II. On our consciousness of mind force, or mental power 
in action, is based all our conceptions of force, and all our 
reasoning on force. This we have shown by appeal to the 
phraseology and reasoning of the evolutionist himself. 

III. We know by consciousness, that there is a difference 
between the mere animal life force of our bodies, regulated 
and controlled by our minds, and our minds, w^hich control 
and regulate this animal life force. 

IV. We know by consciousness that our animal life force 
is controlled and regulated by our minds, exhibiting co-ordi- 
nation, adjustment and adaptation, design, plan, prevision 
and provision in such control and regulation. 

V. All of the displays of this one force in nature, all its ac- 
tions, reactions, and interactions, ^]l of its manifestations and 



158 THE PROBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

modifications, iire controlled, regulated, co-ordinated, adjusted, 
and adapted, in order, method, and system, exhibiting design, 
plan and purpose, with prevision of, and provision for, all that 
is produced by it, regulated and controlled by mathematical 
and other laws that are purely rational and mental, expressing 
and realizing the highest and most abstruse and abstract con- 
ceptions of reason. 

VI. We intuitively recognize in nature the control and 
regulation of force by mental conceptions and rational ideas, 
and recognize in the manifestations of force, and in their ac- 
tions, reactions and interactions, co-ordination, adjustment, 
adaptation, design, plan, prevision and provision, or the reali- 
zation of the highest and most abstruse and abstract ideas and 
conceptions of reason. 

VII. In so doing we do not project ourselves into nature or 
anthropomorphize nature, but we recognize in nature what the 
evolutionist himself is compelled to recognize in nature, in his 
descriptions of nature, even while denying its existence the.re, 
the control and regulation of force, exhibiting co-ordination, 
adjustment, adaptation, design, plan, prevision and provision. 
The exact correspondence between what we see in nature in 
the regulation and control of force, and in ourselves in the ac- 
tion of force, controlled and regulated by mind, compels us to 
recognize the control and regulation of mind in both cases, and 
throw back the control and regulation of forces, which we see in 
nature, on to mind as its only conceiveable ground. 

But, although it may seem presumption for me to do so, I 
question this new speculation, called correlation of forces — 
that all phenomena are produced by one force — are but differ- 
ent manifestations of one force. It contradicts our conscious- 
ness that there is a distinction of individuality, identity, or 
being — between force and the mind, which controls force. It 
contradicts our intuitions that there is a similar distinction 
between life and mere physical force, between reason and the 
physical force of wind or steam. The reasoning by which cor- 
relation of force is established is in violation of every princi- 
ple of inductive philosophy, which demands that we examine 
phenomena., and, from their characteristics, reason to their 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 159 

cause. The evolutionist very properly examines the phenom- 
ena of inorganic nature, and by their characteristics determines 
the physical force which is their cause. He does not, however, 
examine all the characteristics of the phenomena and recognize 
that the causes are themselves phenomena, and from all char- 
acteristics reason back to the ultimate cause of all being. But 
in the case of vital and mental phenomena, in violation of all 
inductive philosophy, which he professes to take as his guide, 
he refuses to investigate separately the radically dissimilar 
and unique phenomena of life, sensation, instinct, reason, and 
thought, and reason from theii characteristics to their cause. 
He either assumes the similarity of the phenomena of the phys- 
ical and mental world, in violation of all sense, or in viola- 
tion of every principle of correct reasoning he applies results 
reached in the physical world to the radically dissimilar phe- 
nomena of the mental world. In its theories of secretion of 
thought by the brain — molecular action, chemical action, vi- 
bration of medullary particles, etc. — evolution overlooks the 
fact that there must be a self-active cause to originate these 
processes — that there must be an intelligent principle to take 
cognizance of them, and that there is a self-active principle 
that, by means of memory, imagination, and spontaneous 
thought, can arouse all these processes, independent of the 
processes and anterior to them, and also independent of all 
exterior causes. As an exterior cause that affects the body, 
or reaches the mind through the senses and arouses thought 
or emotion is a substantive agent, distinct from the body that 
it influences, or any part of it that it uses in reaching the mind, 
so must that which, in spontaneous thought uses the brain, be 
a substantive agent separate and distinct from the brain which 
it uses. As a cause, that from without would cause nausea 
of a physical organ is a real and substantive agent, separate 
and apart from the organ or the nerves or brain ; so must 
that which, in spontaneous thought, causes nausea, be a real 
substantive agent, separate and distinct from the nerves and 
brain or organ. 

1£ sensation be traced to certain nerves, and mental pro- 
cesses to the brain, and different mental processes to different 



IGO THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS, 

portions of the brain, the query still arises, Is the brain the 
agent or is it the instrument ? We have above proved it to be 
the instrument, and that the agent is a real substantive, intel- 
ligent existence apart from the brain. Such a tracing back of 
sensation and mental processes, merely shows that the mind 
acts through the nerves or brain, but it does not explain sen- 
sation or thought ; it does not tell what sensation or thought 
are, nor what mind is, nor what it is that thinks, or uses the 
nerves or brain as its organs or instruments in sensation or 
thought. Suppose, to use the gross language of Carl Voigt, 
the brain does secrete thought, as the stomach does chyle, stil] 
the question stands unanswered: What is it that operates 
through the brain, and uses it as its organ ? To say the brain, 
is to confound agent Avith instrument, or the actor with his im- 
plements. To assume that it is physical force, is to ascribe to 
it what it does not possess and to argue in a circle. When we 
ask what causes physical force to accomplish so wonderful and 
foreign a result as thought, we are told it is that wonderful 
organization of matter know as the brain. If we ask what 
produces that wonderful organization of matter, the brain, that 
so controls and modifies physical force, we are told that phys- 
ical force, its effect, is its cause. Physical force produces the 
brain, and the brain produces the physical force, or mode 
of force called thought. Reason says that the brain is but the 
instrument, and the instrument of a real substantive, intelli- 
gent agent, distinct from brain or physical force. 

In this speculation, the correlation of forces, we have the 
same juggle of words that we have so often exposed. Heat 
is a mode of motion, and light is a mode of motion, and elec- 
tricity is a mode of motion. All forces are modes of motion, 
says Tyndall, and it is applauded as a profound scientific dis- 
covery or idea. Modes of motion of what ? JMotion of what 
demands common sense. If thought be a mode of something, 
or a mode of motion of something, the reason of every thinker 
asks, Modes of what, or motion of what? Then are reason, 
thought, and emotion mere modes of motion of the same force 
that whirls the dust in the breeze? Are these forces capable 
of being resolved into each other? ' Common sense says they 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 161 

are not. They may neutralize eacli other in their influence 
on matter, and not be identical or capable of being resolved 
into each other. Are they identical, or does the use of mattei' 
by one merely unfit matter to be used by the other ? Excess- 
ive physical toil may unfit one for mental effort, and excess- 
ive mental effort may unfit one for physical labor. But does 
this prove that the forces employed are identical? By no 
means. It merely proves that one exhausted the organization 
and unfitted it to be used by the other. This is clearly shown 
by the fact that within reasonable limits, physical labor pre- 
pares for mental effort, and after mental effort one can enjoy 
and perform physical labor better. Excessive amativeness 
unfits one for mental effort, and excessive mental effort unfits 
one for an exercise of amativeness; but does this prove that 
they are different modes of the same force, Or resolvable into 
each other? Who will utter so gross and absurd a thought? 
Does it prove more than that each unfits the body to be exer- 
cised by the other, and, as for that matter, by itself? Has this 
any bearing on the question as to what uses the physical or- 
ganization in either case, and controls and directs the displays 
of force displayed through it in each case ? Then correlation 
of force, is based on a false philosophy— is unproved, is contra- 
dicted by conscious, and can be disproved as far as vital force 
and mental force are concerned. Vital force and mental force 
can not be correlated by physical force. The last evasion is, 
that we can not know any thing about vital principle or life or 
soul, or of the cause, or the character of the cause of these 
phenomena, that perplex the evolutionist. 

In opposition to this, I afiirm that, by consciousness, we 
know more of Vital principle and life and soul than we can 
possibly know of mere physical force or matter ; also that 
what we do know of matter and force comes by and through 
our knowledge of self, and the analogies of our knowledge 
of self and vital force. This we have sufficiently elaborated. 
We can learn the cause of the phenomena, and the charac- 
ter of that cause, by the characteristics of the phenomena. 
We can know a Milton, a Plato, a Shakespeare, by their 
works, and learn more of their character than did their co- 
14 



162 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

temporaries, or than we can of our cotemporaries, for we can 
render, concerning them, a more dispassionate judgment. 
We know, from their works, that they possessed certain char- 
acteristics. In the same way we can learn the cause of the 
phenomena of nature, and the attributes of that cause. We 
can learn and know what he has done. From what he has 
done, we know he has certain attributes. What would we 
think of a man who would say that Milton or Shakespeare 
were unknowable. It is infinitely more absurd to say that 
God, the cause of all, is unknowable? 

Let us now test the practical results of Darwinism as a 
working hypothesis. W^hat does it accomplish in accounting 
for the problems of life and the varieties of life? Let us 
admit all that can be truthfully urged as a basis for Darwin- 
ism. There is indicated in nature an ascending scale of 
existence, from mechanical combinations of matter, through 
chemical compounds, lower forms of vegetable life up to 
higher forms, lower forms of animal life up to highest forms, 
lower types of the human race and various gradations up to 
its most favored specimens. There are certain facts in em- 
bryology that are very curious. Each higher animal, in 
various stages of its embryonic life, resembles various lower 
types of animals. Man, in his embryonic existence, resem- 
bles, in certain respects, in succession, the four lower grand 
divisions of animal nature. There are certain general or 
archetypal ideas that pervade all varieties of an order or 
species. The species of animal and vegetable nature are sus- 
ceptible of being wonderfully varied by climate, crossing; and 
animals, especially, by climate, food domestication and cross- 
breeding, and especially by man's influence intelligently using 
these animals and applying these influences. There are cer- 
tain common instincts that pervade all animal nature. We 
concede all of this. Now, shall we concede Darwin's hy- 
pothesis, that all varieties of animal and vegetable life have 
been produced from one primordial germ, or from a few pri- 
mordial germs, by the influence of conditions. Other queries 
arise also. What is the character of these conditions? Are 
they entirely and solely unintelligent — modifications of matter 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 163 

and force ? Or has intelligence, and results of intelligence, a 
place among them? Did intelligence devise and co-ordinate 
and arrange these conditions ? Does intelligence control and 
direct them? Is there order, method, system, and plan in the 
operations of these conditions? Are there design, plan, pur- 
pose, prevision, provision, and law of intelligence and reason 
in their action and operations? Some of these queries we 
have already answered. We will now ask, as a matter of 
fact, do the facts of observation and experience sustain the 
assumptions of Darwin's hypothesis, that all varieties of veg- 
etable and animal life have been produced by the influence of 
conditions on one primordial germ, or a few primordial germs ? 

We reply that they do not; and give as our first reason, 
one that is sufiicient of itself. The genesis of a new species 
of animal or plant has never come within the knowledge of 
man in historic or prehistoric times. Evolutionists may spec- 
ulate as much as they please, but they can not point to a 
single instance, and say that here is the genesis of a new 
species, and we can tell you all about, or even any thing 
about it. They can not point to an instance where conditions 
produced a single species in historic or geologic times. Dar- 
win has confessed that he could not lay his finger on a single 
instance, and say, here is an instance where species has been 
produced according to my theory. He speculates as to how 
he thinks they may have been produced, but never says, "I 
know, or can prove, that this species has been thus produced," 
in a single instance. 

Dr. Thompson, an eminent scientist of England, and a be- 
liever in evolution, says, "During the whole period of recorded 
human observation, in thousands of years on land, and lat- 
terly in the vast area of the sea, as revealed in deep sea 
dredgings, not a single instance of the change of one species 
into another has been detected; and, strange to say, in all 
the successive geologic formations and epochs, although new 
species wei-e constantly appearing, and there is abundance of 
evidence of progressive change, no single case has as yet been 
found or observed of one species passing through a series of 
unappreciable modifications into another." As we have re- 



164 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

peatedly stated, and so Dr. Thompson also did, geology contra- 
dicts and disproves the theory, by showing that the changes 
have been by steps, and that each species has existed in its 
greatest perfection at first, and that a great many species of 
the highest perfection have suddenly appeared, without any 
pre-existing lower types or prophetic forms. Darwin more 
than once confesses the immutability of species as far as 
human experience and knowledge extends, during all histor>' 
and geologic epochs. Mummies of animals, and remains of 
animals in caves and geologic strata, show that species have 
ever remained the same, even during the immense periods 
claimed by geology. And they have remained the same 
under all influences of climate, food, and domestication. So 
persistently do species remain permanent under all conditions, 
and vastly different conditions, that Darwin confesses that but 
little stress can be laid on the influence of conditions. When 
he made that concession, he might as well have cast to one 
side his theory, for that is based on the influence of con- 
ditions, and is an assumption that conditions have produced 
all species and varieties. 

Nature has placed a chasm between species in the law of 
liybridization. Cross-breeding between varieties of the same 
species is possible, but hybridization between different species 
is impossible, except in case of a very few species, and these 
are very closely allied species of the same family, and in these 
cases the hybrids are sterile, so that the production of a new 
species is impossible. Nature thus has positively declared 
that there is an impassable chasm between species, that has 
never been passed, for it can not be passed. No new species 
has been produced by insensible gradation from a lower to a 
higher species, for there are no such insensible gradations 
but an impassable chasm. The difference between species is 
more than a difference in degree, it is one of nature and 
kind. 

There is an incompatibility of nature in the case of species. 
Another fact closely allied to this, that renders it of vital im- 
portance : No divergence from any species or stock, ever has 
become sterile to the original stock; hence, no divergence ever 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 165 

has become a new species. These two facts, when combined, 
settle forever Darwin's hypothesis concerning the origin of 
s])ecies. Evolution confounds variability with mutability, 
when they are radically different. Mutability is necessary to 
produce species. Variability modifies species within definite 
limits. Variability has limits, and never passes into muta- 
bility. Another important fact connected with this, is that 
when the varying influence is lemoved, the variation returns 
to the original stock, or partially so. Variation can not go 
beyond certain limits without producing sterility. Man's 
improvements, if carried beyond a certain limit, produce ster- 
ility. This is often seen in the nursery and seed gardens ; and 
breeders and horticulturalists, and all persons improving 
plants or animals, are -often under the necessity of returning to 
the original stock to restore fertility and vitality. Another 
radical defect in Darwin's theory is that almost all of its facts 
and illustrations, and all its well-established and important 
ones, are taken from what man, by means of his intelligence, 
has done. By domestication, by change of climate and food, 
and change of conditions, man's intelligence and action has 
produced strange variations, but they have never produced a 
new species. Evolution attempts, by means of what the in- 
telligence of man has done, in producing variations, although 
it has never produced a new species, to prove that unintelli- 
gent matter and force would produce an almost infinitely 
greater result, a new species. Man's intelligence was needed 
to cause the change of conditions. Animals and plants never 
would have produced them. Man's intelligence was needed to 
apply and render effectual the conditions, and to perpetuate 
the effects, and continue them in one direction. If man's will 
and intelligence can not produce a new species, using, as he 
does, all the conditions in nature, how can unintelligent 
matter and force produce thousands, yea hundreds of thou- 
sands? Then we repreat our previous fact, that species have 
definite limits which they never pass, under man's influence 
or any other. Those limits may vary greatly, but they are 
never transcended. 

There are radical physiological differences between species 



166 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

that are never bridged over by triinsitional forms. There k 
absohitely not a transitional form in existence, nor can one be 
found in historic or geologic epochs. Species can be found 
that partake of the characteristics of two or more species or 
orders or genera, but they remain permanent, in precisely that 
form, as long as they exist. The bat is a bat, and the duck- 
billed animal, that has web feet, lays eggs, and suckles its off 
spring, is a platypus as long as the species exist. Since evo- 
lution supposes development to be continually working during 
all time, it, of necessity, must regard every species now in ex- 
istence as transitional, and undergoing the process of trans- 
mutation now. Its conditions that it appeals to, to produce 
species, are in existence now, and operating now, and are 
producing the effect they did in the past ; if so, every species 
in existence is transitional. If conditions produce new species 
by imperceptible gradations, there ought to be innumerable 
gradations, and such a confusion of varieties as would defy 
classification. There w^ould be no chasm between species. 
The transition from one species to another w^oald not be 
abrupt. We would be puzzled to distinguish between species 
in the case of any species. Experience declares that, with 
rare exceptions, species are easily classified. There are im- 
passable chasms between them. There are absolutely no 
transitional forms. There is no confusion. Geology gives no 
transitional forms. Species appear in their greatest perfec- 
tion at first, and remain the same during all geologic epochs 
in which they exist, and under all conditions. In case of 
the ibis, reindeer and elk, if geology be true, they have re- 
mained unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years. If 
it be said that change of conditions are needed to produce 
change in species, Ave reply that there have been colossal 
changes. But selection, we are told, can only act when va- 
riations appear. Then it is not a cause of variations, and 
Darwinism is given up. When variations appear now, they 
are monstrosities, and are eliminated by the very conditions 
that are supposed to preserve them. Nature pronounces 
against preservation of variations by making monstrosities 
sterile. 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 167 

Darwinism assumes the transmutation of species. It makes 
creation a chain of connected links, in which every link is 
continually being transmuted into the link above it, and then 
into the next, and so on. This never has occurred in human 
experience or knowledge, nor is there the slightest evidence 
in human experience or knowledge that it ever has occurred 
in a single instance. The geologic records in all their 
s^trata fail to furnish a hint of such transmutation. Our 
attention is often called to such transformations as the egg, 
the caterpillar, the grub, and the moth. But, unfortunately 
for evolution, the moth never goes higher^ but we have from 
it the egg, worm, etc. We have this cycle during all ex- 
perience. This fact, with former ones, is sufficient to set to 
one side all Darwinism forever. When the attention of the 
evolutionist is called to these defects in his speculations — 
that he can not furnish a single instance of the genesis of 
a new species by conditions, by the method he claims pro- 
duced them, nor of a single transitional form, nor of the 
transmutation of species — he has two evasions. The first is 
the imperfection of the geological record. A more pitiful 
excuse never was offered. We have, in the geologic strata, 
and in our knowledge, millions of varieties and species. In 
some geologic periods, the remains of species, to the number 
of many thousands, have been catalogued in each epoch. 
When we consider the vast number of transitional forms 
that evolution must place between them, and the vast num- 
ber of transmutations needed to bridge over the chasms be- 
tween them, and then the ease with which the vast and 
])Owerful forms, that these transitional forms between the 
higher species at least must have had, could have been pre- 
served; and then reflect that we find absolutely none, we 
can only conclude, that we find none, because there never 
were any in existence. Countless numbers of species, easily 
destroyed, have been preserved through tremendous changes, 
when most of the transitional forms, if there had b^een any, 
must have been far more easily preserved. 

The other evasion is to demand a period of time practi- 
cally infinite, to effect the changes that are claimed for con- 



168 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ditions. We are told that the changes are so gradual and 
imperceptible, that even during the period of man's existence 
on the earth, he has not had sufficient time to observe any 
perceptible change. The reply to this evasion is very easy. 
The extraordinary births and monstrosities to which some 
evolutionists appeal are the work of one reproduction. The 
variations of species, to which Darwin appeals are, at far- 
tliest, the work of a few generations, and often of a few years. 
Changes within the limits of species are always very palpable 
in a very short period. In the many thousands of animals 
and plants that have existed for thousands of years with 
man, there certainly ought to be observed these transitional 
forms, and these transmutations, no matter how long it may 
take. There ought to be some evidence of transitional forms, 
or ti-ansmutations, in so many thousands of years, but there 
are none. Then when we take the geologic strata, and con- 
cede to them the millions of years that the evolutionist 
claims, and examine their millions of species, and find not 
a single iota of evidence for transitional forms or transmu- 
tation, the evasion becomes simply an insult to reason. Ev- 
olution makes the action of heat, earthquake and other phys- 
ical causes far more destructive than now, during the geologic 
epochs. If there were enormous generations of life during 
these periods, when conditions were comparatively so unfav- 
orable and even so destructive, why not for greater genera- 
tions of new life now, w^hen all is tranquil, and so much 
better fitted to evolution, according to the hypothesis? Why 
not transitional forms and transmutations now, when condi- 
tions are so much better fitted to the work. Finally, this 
attempt to make the change so gradual as to be absolutely 
imperceptible by man, in the many thousand years of his 
history, and the vast periods of geology, practically removes 
the whole hypothesis beyond human knowledge, and renders 
it incapable of proof, and makes of it an absurdity, and it is 
an insult to all reason and sense to demand that we accept 
a theory that the advocates have to remove beyond all possi- 
bility of proof, to save it from utter overthrow. Then astron- 
omy and geology utterly refuse to concede to evolution the 



FAILUHES OF EVOLUTION. 169 

vast, the infinite time it demands. If the thousands of years 
of man's history, and if the vast periods of geology, have 
produced no change on certain well-known species, how long 
would it take to develop man from a cloud of star-dust, as 
Tyndall asserts? 

Another fatal objection is furnished by geology, on which 
Darwinism specially relies. Geology teaches that so far from 
only lower forms appearing only at first, and then passing 
into higher forms and disappearing in this way, as Darwin 
demands, the opposite has been the case. According to Dar- 
winism only lower forms should appear in the early geologic 
epochs. They should pass into higher with change of condi- 
tions. All highly organized species have been developed by 
imperceptible gradations from lower types, and each should 
have countless lower ancestral types. But in the case of 
fishes, very highly organized species appeai'ed first, and with- 
out any ancestral forms. The same holds true of the batra- 
chian or frog family. During the mesozoic period, the dei- 
nosauri and other very highly organized animals appeared 
without any progenitors, and appear suddenly without any 
prophethic types. Keptiles of much lower organization ap- 
peared long after these highly organized animals. All this 
contradicts the ascending gradual scale demanded by Dar- 
winism. Again, geology teaches that species appear in their 
greatest perfection at first. Geology can point to periods 
when they did not exist. Then it can point to the remains 
in succeeding epochs, but they are in their highest perfection 
when they first appear. Highly organized species appeared 
early without progenitors, and have persisted throughout en- 
tire geologic epochs, and in many cases during several, and 
throughout great changes of conditions. If there has been 
any change it has been one of degeneracy, and not of 
improvement. There has been a progress in creation, but 
it has been by successive steps. There has been evolution, 
but it has been evolution of the plan of the Creator. Geology 
clearly teaches that all species, even the most highly organ- 
ized, appear suddenly, and in the highest perfection at first. 
Strongly marked specific diflTerences suddenly appear also, and 
15 



170 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

not gradually, as demanded by the theory of development. 
Geology teaches then that as the earth became unfitted for 
lower forms, or any forms, they degenerated and disappeared, 
and others were substituted in their greatest perfection at 
first. All these facts of geology are in direct contradiction 
of Darwinism, and every theory of evolution by mere matter 
and force. 

Darwinism explains all varieties^ and species by the influ- 
ence of conditions on a few primordial germs. There are a 
few well established facts of geology that positively contra- 
dicts this assumption. Darwinism demands change of condi- 
tions to cause improvements, by means of improvements the 
fittest were enabled to survive. These lower forms would be- 
come unfitted to survive and would disappear. But the lowest 
forms have persisted through all epochs and all changes of 
conditions. These conditions do not determine the order of 
life ; or if they do, there have been no changes of conditions 
to evolve new forms of life. The evolutionist may take 
which alternative he pleases. If conditions determine the 
order of life, there has been no change of conditions, for these 
simple forms persist through all changes, or if there has been 
changes these changes of conditions do not produce the va- 
rieties of life, for the forms have not been varied. The very 
simplest forms of life appear now, and have persisted during 
all ages. Highest and lowest forms have co-existed in nearly 
all epochs. Conditions can not have produced them. Man 
carries animals and plants into every condition, and they 
flourish, showing their persistence against conditions. Again, 
often they improve, thus showing that conditions highly 
adapted to tliem failed to })roduce them, and showing that 
animals are adapted to conditions, and not that conditions pro- 
duced animals adapted to themselves. Even the lowest and 
simplest forms have persisted through all changes and va- 
rieties of circumstances. There is not a subservience of life 
to physical conditions, but a superiority of vital force to them, 
and it was not produced by them. Physical force is ever 
destructive of vital forces, unless conquered and co-ordinated 
by it, and vital force is antagonistic to physical forces, and 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 171 

conquers and subordinates them, and renders them subservi- 
ent to itself. A multitude of orders of animals, with innu- 
merable varieties, existing side by side under the same condi- 
tions, vastly different animals under the same conditions, and 
the same animals under all varieties of condition, disprove 
evolution by conditions. 

These conditions do not produce similar results, but pre- 
cisely opposite results. In the sea the same conditions ob- 
tain certainly, and in them we find the air breathing por- 
poise and water breathing sturgeon. These conditions do not 
produce what is most fitted. The air breathing porpoise or 
whale, is certainly most unfitted to be produced by water or 
in water. We have no horses on the pampas of the New 
World, although they existed as the most adapted to horses 
of any portion of the globe for ages, and there were equine 
type in the New World for several geologic epochs. Multi- 
tudes of cases might be given where man has carried animals 
into places where they did not exist, and they flourished, and 
even improved, thus showing that the conditions were espe- 
cially fitted for them, yet had not produced them, although 
they had existed for vast ages. Hence, conditions have failed 
to evolve what was especially fitted to them, and just what 
they would produce, did they produce any thing. 

Again, we find existences in conditions that are utterly 
opposed to their production. We find existences the very 
opposite of the conditions. An air-breathing animal in water 
would no more be expected, or be produced by conditions, 
than a gilled animal, that had to go into the water to get 
breath, would be expected to be produced by conditions on 
land. The conditions that are appealed to to account for 
the development, are opposed to the development in most 
cases. The change necessary in the lungs and other organs 
in passing from water to land,, and from land to water, or 
other changes equally great, are not susceptible of being pro- 
duced by development. No amount of trial or effort could 
make a fish breathe air, or an air-breathing animal breathe 
water. Change of conditions destroy instead of changing or 
adapting. The evolutionist has this dilemma to meet: Either 



172 THE PKOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

animals were adapted to conditions, or they were not. If 
adapted at first, then his law of change by conditions is gone, 
and the query arises, Who adapted them to conditions? If 
not adapted at first, how did they exist until they were 
adapted? The action of the change of conditions \vould de- 
stroy, instead of producing adaptation. It is like the man's 
calf that he was trying to adapt to live on one straw per day. 
Before he got him adapted he killed him in adapting him to 
sucli conditions! The evolutionist evades this by calling at- 
tention to the case of divers and fishers who become accus- 
tomed to remaining under water a wonderful length of time 
comparatively. But it is an evasion. The diver never 
breathes water. His power of endurance is increased, but 
there is a very narrow limit to it. Then the pain and incon- 
venience of adaptation would compel the animal to avoid the 
struggle of adaptation. Darwinism supposes that animals 
leave conditions in which they are adapted and enjoy them- 
selves, and press into conditions in which they are unadapted 
and suffer the pain and destruction of adaptation. 

Then conditions produce such opposite results, such contra- 
dictory results. They did not affect man as they did other 
animals. If man was once an ape-like animal, with hairy 
covering, a tail Avhich was as useful as a hand almost, and a 
prehensile foot and toe, his modes of life and locomotion 
and conditions would be entirely opposed to his loss of these 
characteristics, absolutely necessary to his mode of life. We 
are asked to believe that a mode of life and conditions fitted 
man for these conditions, and furnished him with these char- 
acteristics when he was unfitted; and then unfitted him for 
themselves, and deprived him of these characteristics so essen- 
tial to his mode of life and conditions, when he was so well 
fitted to them ! Conditions produced results so opposite to 
themselves. Conditions gave to man and the ape a pre- 
hensile tail, a prehensile foot and toe, and then conditions 
stripped man of these necessary and essential characteristics, 
and the same conditions perpetuated and intensified these 
same characteristics in the ape! The law of conditions is like 
the old woman's I'ule for testino- c(i:<2;s: "Put tliem into water. 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 173 

and the good ones will sink or swim, and I don't know 
which!" Had the old woman put her eggs in water and 
reasoned : This swims, therefore it is good ; this sinh, and 
therefore it is good, and pronounced them all tested and 
proved to be good, she would have been a full-fledged philo- 
sopher of the Darwinian type. The ape sinks and the man 
swims in precisely the same conditions, therefore the same 
conditions produce these exactly opposite results. 

Then the same conditions produce such different results. 
They make of one and the same organ the wing of a bird, 
the paddle of a whale, the flipper of a mole, the wing of a bat 
and the hand of a man. Again, we see the same organ used 
in such a variety of ways and conditions, often in conditions 
radically opposed to each other. And then the same result 
is reached often in such different ways by the use of such dif- 
ferent organs. Often the organs and results are so opposed 
to each other that it is impossible to concieve that condi- 
tions could 'have caused them. This theory of conditions 
does not harmonize with homologous organs and structures 
in so widely different and even opposite conditions, or with 
such widely different structures and organs in the same 
conditions. Conditions could not have produced contradic- 
tory and opposite results in the one case, or such opposite and 
different conditions produced the same result in the other. 
Man's loss of hairy covering, and prehensile foot and toe, and 
prehensile tail, if he ever was a simian and possessed them, 
was just the opposite of what the conditions could have pro- 
duced. Conditions fitted man for themselves when he was 
unfitted, and then they unfitted him for themselves when he 
was fitted! These absurdities show, as Darwin says, that 
little stress can be laid on conditions. 

Darwinism requires that each variation, produced by con- 
ditions, be an improvemxCnt, be a step in an ascending scale, 
from lower to higher, from simple to complex, from useless to 
useful. Whence came this invariably beneficial tendency of 
conditions, this uniform upward action of conditions? Was 
it not planned and sustained by mind? Again, Darwinism 
requires that improvements, be a help in the struggle for life. 



174 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

If forms with useful variations struggle with unimproved, 
why should improved prevail? We know that man's im- 
provements unfit for the struggle for life. The improved 
horse, dog or ox stands no chance in a struggle for life with 
unimproved. Then when man's influence is removed, con- 
ditions and the influence of nature removes the improvements, 
and returns the animal to the original stock, thus showing, if 
any thing, that nature and conditions have a tendency to de- 
stroy improvements, and not to preserve them. Variations 
would not be improvements nor aids in a struggle for life 
until perfect. All variations would be a hindrance, and not 
a help, until perfected. They are supposed to be developed 
by use, when there can be no use for them until developed. 
If they are rudimentary and undeveloped and unfit for use, 
how could a lack of use do what use is supposed to do ? If 
they were a blemish and a hindrance and unfitted, conditions, 
if they perform the part ascribed to them by evolution, would 
remove instead of developing them. Evolution 'does not ac- 
count for incipient structures in nature. They are not pro- 
duced by use, for they are not used. They are not developed 
by use, for they are not used. Disuse does not remove them. 
They remain unchanged. According to evolution, they are 
either incipient, rudimental organs, to be developed by use, or 
obsolete organs to be discarded and eliminated by disuse. Nei- 
ther is done. They remain unchanged for ages under all con- 
ditions. These incipient organs in certain animals, that are a 
burden and a hindrance to any development that would make 
them useftd, and that became highly useful when developed in 
other animals, are inexplicable in any theory of evolution. 
Silent organs that are a burden in certain animals, and be- 
come highly useful when developed in others, homologous or- 
gans performing widely different functions, widely different 
organs performing the same functions, are inexplicable and in- 
conceivable in a system of developments by conditions, but are 
perfectly rational and conceivable as a part of a general plan 
or mental conception by a creating mind. In creation, we have 
seen that there are governing conceptions, ideal archetypes, 
that control the course of development pursued in the acts of 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 175 

creation. As in the wheelbarrow, the cart, the wagon, the 
rockaway and hmdan, there is an idea developed by intelli- 
gence, so in the orohippos, the protohippos, the hipparian and 
horse, there is a development of an ideal concept or arche- 
typal form, by intelligence, and not a development of one out 
of the other by unintelligent conditions. Lest it be said that 
we are guilty of anthropomorphism, we make this additional 
remark: There is not the ti'ial and imperfection in one case 
that there is in the others. In the course of creation there was 
perfect knowledge of the result from the beginning, and pro- 
vision for it, and the result was approached unerringly and 
continually. 

There are results that evolution by conditions utterly fails to 
account for. No amount of conditions can account for the 
neck of the giraffe, the proboscis of the elephant, the hand of 
man, or the eye of the eagle, or for the wonderful systems of 
circulation, digestion, respiration, and reproduction in species, 
varying so wonderfully from each other. Let us attempt to 
conceive of natural selection forming rude materials in many 
varieties of letters, then these letters into Avords, and the words 
into sentences, and the sentences into paragraphs, and the par- 
agraphs into chapters, and the chapters into Darwin's " Origin 
of Species," and then printing and binding the book as it 
stands on the shelves of our library. Do you say madness? 
Then what shall we say of the idea that natural selection took a 
cloud of star-dust, and formed the author so infinitel}^ above his 
book, replete as it is with learning and research ? How incon- 
ceivably above the volume is the human form, and how infin- 
itely above the speculations of the argument is the human soul? 
We do not see nature performing such Avonderful acts now. 
Nature takes the materials of which the telescope and watch 
are formed, and makes what we call slag. Intelligent man 
takes the same materials and makes watches and telescopes. 
But these do not continue the work of making other tele- 
scopes and watches. Man has to do that. The theory of evo- 
lution makes matter and force do the work of mind. The the- 
ory of creation makes mind do what mind alone can do. All 
talk of blind, irrational matter and force, by natural selection, 



176 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

doing the work of mind, in producing such organs as the eye 
or hand, is the despair of reason and sense. It makes un intel- 
ligence do wliat requires the highest effort of intelligence to 
understand, and what naught but a high effort of intelligence 
could produce. This one objection alone — that evolution 
makes matter do what can be done only by mind, and unintel- 
ligence do the work of intelligence, and no- will do the work of 
will, is sufficient to brand it as the most absurd chimera that 
ever insulted human reason. 

There are instincts and processes in nature that have refer- 
ence to the organisms of other animals, and never could have 
been produced by natural selection. Take the electric appa- 
ratus of the eel, or the poison of the serpent. These have 
reference to the organism of other animals, and exhibit perfect 
knowledge of them. In the poison of the serpent and other 
animals, there is a knowledge of the structure of other animals 
and wonderful chemical skill in the poison. Sometimes it has 
reference to the organism of certain other animals, to even a 
very few, and is innoxious to others. How could conditions 
around one organism produce variations that have intelligent 
reference to entirely different organisms? It took men thou- 
sands of years of research to attain to a knowledge of electricity 
and of the construction of the pile, coil, and battery, and the 
medium through which electricity Avill act. Here, in the eel, 
we have a perfect coil pile and battery, a knowledge of the 
medium through which electricity will act, and of the organi- 
zation of other animals. AVe are asked to believe that this 
highest display of reason in scientific knowledge, and scientific 
skill in construction, was the result of blind matter and force, 
and conditions acting unintelligently. Take the case of the 
cuckoo laying eggs in the nests of other birds, the ant that 
makes slaves of other ants, or of the bee that builds a cell that 
displays such perfect knowledge of geometrical and architectu- 
ral principles of economy of space, and strength and economy 
of material. Did conditions of unintelligent matter and force 
produce these actions, so expressive of the highest order of in- 
telligence and skill, and so utterly foreign to conditions? Then 
take the case of the queen bee destroying her fertile daughters, 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 177 

and of the working bees destroying the males or drones. Here 
we have a destruction of the fittest. In the latter case it is the 
unfittest destroying the fittest. Evolution utterly fails to ac- 
count for these phenomena. 

Evolution fails to account for another fact in nature. A 
change in any organ or structure is correlated with other 
changes. Symmetry of sides is secured. Other organs in the 
raiimal are co-ordinated with the change by necessary changes. 
Other animals and plants are co-ordinated in such changes. 
Such co-ordination and correlation is not the work of conditions 
of unintelligent forces. Another fact seen in nature is utterly 
inexplicable by evolution by conditions. There are anticipa- 
tions for coming existences and events. The young frog loses 
his water-breathing apparatus preparatory to becoming an air- 
breathing animal. Coal and minerals were prepared and 
placed for man's use ages before he appeared. They are lo- 
cated in just such a way as to meet his wants. Unintelligent 
forces never did this. As we have often remarked, we have to 
make of primordial germs a god or infinite fetich. Or we have 
to make of conditions a god. The evolutionist deifies natural 
selection. It preserves the good, the useful, the beautiful, and 
rejects the weak, ugly, sickly, and worthless. In all this is dis- 
played the most wonderful teleology. The very term survival 
of the fittest expresses the most remarkable teleology. The 
evolution has in this preservation of the fittest, the useful, the 
beautiful, the good, the most complete teleology. 

It is absurd to ascribe all this to a metaphor, natural selec- 
tion. If it is not a metaphor then it is an absurdity. The 
term natural selection, unconscious selection, is an absurdity. 
Selection is the act of an intelligent will. There is no selection 
in unintelligent nature, and it is absurd to talk of it. Hux- 
hy'ti illustration of unconscious selection is an absurdity. He 
takes the case of the wind moving sand and leaving pebbles 
behind. It selects the sand and rejects the pebbles. The truth 
is, that it moves the sand because it can, and leaves the peb- 
bles- because it can not. Huxley's selection is like Hobson's 
choice. You can take what you choose provided you choose 



178 THE PROBLEM OF PROUr.EMS. 

one thing alone that I have chosen for you. The wind selects 
the sand, because it can move nothing else. 

Evolution fails to account for the great difference there is 
between the brain of man, the lowest specimen of humanity, 
and the highest animal on earth. It is a broad chasm, and 
not a slight upward ascent of an inclined plane. The brain 
of man is two and a half times larger in proportion than that 
of the most highly endowed animal. When we reflect, also, 
that if we compare the intellectual portions, the ratio is ten to 
one, and in the moral and religious faculties there is no com- 
l)arison, for the animal is destitute of these ; there is estab- 
lished a chasm no hypothesis of evolution can leap or bridge. 
The brain of the savage was not produced by his condition of 
life. It is much larger than his condition of life demands. 
His condition, then, is a retrogression, a degradation into 
which he has dragged down his brain. Conditions never 
produced his brain. We have no indication of the develop- 
ment of man from lower animals. Man's lineage goes back as 
far as that of the simian, hence the simian was not his pro- 
genitor. Zoologically, men and apes have no afiinity of spe- 
cies, genus, family, or order. 

An eminent naturalist has established four hundred physi- 
ological differences between man and the simian family, and 
such differences too as those on which species are based. They 
are differences of species and not of varieties. Likeness of or- 
gans, or types, or plan, do not prove derivation any more than 
wheelbarrow, cart, wagon, and carriage have descended one 
from the other. Animals are provided with means of suste- 
nance, existence, protection from elements, and of defense and 
offense within themselves. Animals never make mistakes. 
They never progress. They use no implements, and can invent 
none. Animals began existence perfect. Man has in himself 
no means of sustenance, existence, protection from elements, or 
of defense and offense. He makes mistakes. He begins ex- 
istence utterly helpless, and remains so for years. Is of slow 
growth. Yet man is lord of creation. Renders all subservi- 
ent to him. Easily destroys all life. He has reason, and 
ren;lcrs subservient jill forces and powers of nature. Houses 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 179 

nncl invents implements and machines. He corrects mistakes, 
discovers, invents, and improves. Is a progressive being — il- 
limitably so. No animal can conceive of man's means and 
mode of life. They do not emulate or imitate. Do not learn 
from him. Do not progress. Can not be made to take on 
man's nature or mode of existence. Are limited by struct- 
ure and instinct. How can a living machine put off con- 
trivances necessary to existence, and assume the sphere of in- 
telligence ? 

Evolutionists tell us man was a carnivorous animal, con- 
quering the powerful carnivora of the post-glacial epochs, 
and able to withstand a rigorous climate. They do not de- 
duce this from a single known fact, or from his physical organ- 
ization. The latter declares him to be a frugivorous animal, 
suited to a mild climate, for he has no means of obtaining 
flesh, and has no protection from a rigorous climate. Again, 
apes, from whence he is said to spring, are frugivorous. They 
have powerful jaws and teeth as a means of defense. If man 
was a carnivorous ape, his teeth, and j[aws, and hand-like feet, 
would become more marked as he fought for life and food, 
and conquered other animals. Then where, in the records of 
these epochs, do we have any trace of such a powerful animal. 
Geology furnishes us thousands of species and millions of their 
remains, but not one trace of such an animal as this. Had 
there been such an animal in existence, he would not, in op- 
position to all conditions, have lost these characteristics suited 
to his condition, and developed into an animal wanting them, 
and utterly opposed to his conditions. Natural selection, then, 
when applied to man, can have no relation to his physical na- 
ture, but only to his mental and moi-al nature. The latter 
select and improve. The former does not. The lowest man 
subsists by means entirely distinct from the animal in means 
of sustenance, existence, protection from elements, and of of- 
fence and defense. If stripped of these, he would perish. 
Reduce man to animal means of existence, and he would per- 
ish. Confine the brute to man's means of life, and he would 
perish. 

Evolution fails to account for self-consciousness, reason, and 



180 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

rational and moral nature in man. All human beings, no 
matter how degraded, have them. The lowest savages are 
moral agents, susceptible of education, and progress, and ele- 
vation. All men, even the lowest savages, have moral and 
religious ideas, God, religion, moral desert, and duty. Brutes 
can not by any amount of training be made to take on such 
ideas. How, then, could a brute evolve them without the aid 
of a higher intelligence, or under the influence of unintelli- 
gent conditions ? The lower forms of human life are degrada- 
tion, as is proved by man's great brain, and his moral and re- 
ligious ideas that never originated in such condition. Where 
man had his origin, he never was surrounded by physical 
conditions to reduce him so low, nor Avas he ever in such low 
condition, if archaeology be true. Where these low conditions 
exist, man could not have had his origin. Hence, he never 
had his origin in these low conditions, and they are degrada- 
tions. Because man was ignorant of mechanic arts at first, 
does not prove that he was as low as modern savage tribes. 
His capacity may have been infinitely above these savages in 
other directions. His moral and rational nature may have 
been vastly above them. . A lady may be unable to cope with 
a savage in struggle for life and mechanic arts, and yet be no 
nearer an animal than the latter. 

No amount of conditions of physical nature can evolve 
man's moral and religious nature, or his rational nature. No 
natural selection could produce man's rational conceptions of 
infinity in time, space, being and causation, and of causation, 
right and wrong. Natural selection never produced the cath- 
olic, rational, moral and religious ideas of God, government 
by him, responsil:)ility, moral desert, retribution, moral char- 
acter, providence, prayer, inspiration, atonement, sacrifice, 
religion and worship. How could conditions of irrational 
matter or force give rise to artistic feeling and capacity? 
Ideas of melody and music, instrumental and vocal, poetry, 
sculpture, painting and the arts? Then poetry and philoso- 
phy, and all departments of science, literature and art? Ab- 
stract ideas of form, beauty, arithmetic and geometry? Ab- 
stract ideas of conscience, law. order, method, justice and 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 181 

truth ? Evolution can not account for the human voice, and 
for speech and language. Whence came the matchless voice 
of Jenny Lind or Parepa ? Whence came language, with all 
its principles, laws, and development in eloquence and liter- 
ature ? How much training would it take to develop the 
most highly organized animal, to enable it to sing, speak and 
use human language ? How much development would 
change the breathing apparatus of an animal into man's vo- 
cal organs, or the cries of brutes into the eloquence of a Dem- 
osthenes ? How long would it take animals under unintelligent 
conditions to do all this? Evolution assumes that conditions 
without intelligence have done this ? How did natural se- 
lection evolve the symphonies of a Mozart, a Beethoven, a 
Haydn, or a Mendelssohn? 

Again, it does not remove the miracle to cheapen it. It is 
as impossible for blind, insensate matter and blind, irrational 
force to leap the chasm between inorganic matter and a cell 
of protoplasm, as from a cloud of star-dust to man, for the 
very self-evident reason that they do not leap at all. Hence 
the attempt to remove the miracle by chopping it up into an 
infinite number of infinitely small particles, and distributing 
them in an almost infinite series of structures, through an 
almost infinite time, only hifinitely increases the difficulty ; 
for it renders necessary an almost infinite series of leaps, each 
as impossible for blind, irrational matter and force as the one 
almost infinite leap would be. Suppose we were standing be- 
fore the Tip-Top House on Mount Washington, and were to 
be told that all the material was once in the valley, nearly a 
mile lower than the house, and several miles distant down 
the mountain, and were to be convinced that such was the 
case, and were to ask how came they here? If we were told 
they leaped up here spontaneously at one leap, we would re- 
ject it with scorn, as an insult to reason, for matter does 
not spontaneously leap. '' But," persists the one making the 
assertion, ** it was done in an almost infinite number of leaps." 
"No," we reply, "it matters not how many, for matter does 
not leap at all. It can leap miles as well as an inch." ^' But 
it just slid up," is urged. "No; matter don't slide," we 



182 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

would say. " Well," says the author of " Evolution and 
Progress," 'Mt would have to do it only once!" ''Well, 
there is the rub. Nature does not do it once, even. If she 
could do it once, there would be no trouble about a million 
such acts." " Well," says Darwin, "it could do it if you will 
grant it time enough." No ; no amount of time could impart 
to matter one particle of causal efficiency. Time is not a 
cause, but merely a period during which a cause acts. 

Then this attempt to get rid of the difficulty by dividing it 
into an infinite number of small particles, and distributing 
them in an infinite series through an infinite period of time, 
only increases it infinitely ; for nature could make the leap at 
one bound as easily as it could one of these small leaps. If 
it is made an inclined plane, it will not help ; for nature does 
not slide upward spontaneously. Nor will an infinite period 
of time help the matter, for time will not add one particle 
of causal efficiency, especially one particle of new and differ- 
ent causal efficiency. 

There are remarkable phenomena in the world that evolu- 
tion is utterly unable to solve. Mere struggle for life never 
produced beauty and its varieties, especially the almost infin- 
ite variety of ideal conceptions in which it is displayed. Nor 
will Darwin's last eff'ort, sexual selection, explain it. Greater 
strength would enable the male to monopolize the females, 
but that throws no light on the origin of beauty. It is the 
very despair of all reasoning to talk of sexual selection pro- 
ducing the infinite varieties of beauty, especially when they 
exhibit such wonderful ideal conceptions. What influence 
does a spot on a feather, or a slight difference in an organ, or 
in the form or length of the body, have on animals under 
the influence of this overpowering passion? There is abso- 
lutely no selection influenced by beauty about the action of 
this appetite. This all-pervading idea of beauty, seen in all 
nature, is without a shadow of explanation under this system. 
Especially is this the case with the high ideal conceptions of 
beauty realized, and the sublime ideas of reason wrought out 
in the beauty of all nature. Then, in human action, whence 
came the Avorks and ideas of the artists and sculptors and 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 183 

architects of our race ? Did struggle for life, or mere condi- 
tions of physical force in matter, produce them ? Then tlio 
wonderful intellects of a Plato, a Demosthenes, a Hume, a 
Milton, a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Bacon, and their great 
works, what produced them ? Did struggle for life — unin- 
telligent conditions — produce them? The achievements of 
our race in all departments of mind are the work of blind 
irrational force, modified by- insensate matter ! 

Evolution makes no will produce will, unintelligenc^e pro- 
duce intelligence, and things destitute of moral character pro- 
duce moral character, things destitute of moral nature or 
character produce moral character and nature. According to 
evolution there was a time Avhen none of these were in exist- 
ence. Then things without volition, moral character, nature, 
or idea, or intelligence, evolved all these. Intelligence and 
morality are original characteristics or processes. They exist 
and are not evolved, especially by that which does not contain 
them, nor out of what does not contain them. Here is a fatal 
defect of evolution and Darwinism. Again, struggle for life 
never produced the results of the moral and religious world, 
any more than it did these ideas. How could brutal, selfish 
struggle for life produce generosity, trust in providence, love, 
faith, longing for immortality, and belief in it? Selfish, 
brutal struggle for life, in a state of brutal instinctive animal- 
ism, or brutal, idiotic savagery, never produced moral sense 
and conscience, and sense of right and wrong, and accountabil- 
ity and obligation, duty, love of truth, justice and duty for 
their own sake. Have the patriot's sacrifice, the philanthro- 
pist's self-denial, and the martyr's devotion sprang from brutal 
struggle for life? Social instincts, such as exist among gre- 
garious animals, will not produce them, for unless there was 
moral sense to control, direct and elevate them, they would 
only become more shrewdly selfish. These moral qualities 
and this moral sense of man must exist before what evolution 
assumes to be their cause, to control and elevate it, before it 
woidd have any tendency except in an opposite direction. 
How can a sense of an utility above and in opposition to selfish 
utility arise in selfishness and in a sense and exercise of selfish 



184 THE PliOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

utility? Whence came the accumulated growth and experi- 
ence? When will an accumulation of experiences of selfish 
utility, accumulated under a sense of selfish utility, change to 
a moral sense? Perhaps the most pitiable instance to be 
found in human speculation of an attempt to dig down a 
mountain with a straw, is to be found in some thirty or forty 
pages of Darwin's writings, when he attempts to account for 
conscience as moral sense and moral ideas. When summed 
up, the first conscience was the result of the difierence between 
a full stomach and an empty one. Darwinism is especially 
repugnant to every noble and elevated feeling on account of 
its degraded conceptions of the origin of our affectional, 
moral and religious nature. A shivering ape, crossed in love, 
or suffering with hunger, acquires a consciousness of coming 
evil, and this is the origin of religion. Or he feared what 
injured him, and he became attached to what benefited him, 
as the dog does toward his master or enemies, and this is the 
beginning of religion. 

Darwinism assumes tliat a brutal struggle for life is elevat- 
ing, or that elevation came out of it. Our experience and 
our moral intuitions declare that it is degrading, producing 
ferocity, selfishness and brutality. It is only as existence, 
animal or human, is relieved from struggle for life, that there 
is elevation. Darwinism assumes that animalism, brutality 
and struggle for life are a means of elevation ; or that prog- 
ress is possible in them. Our moral intuitions and experi- 
ence assure us that they are necessarily polluting and debasing 
in their tendency. The same fallacy is seen in its specula- 
tions in regai-d to physical improvement. The fighting ani- 
mal becomes more ferocious, and the cur that has to struggle 
for life is the meanest of his kind. A certain amount of 
elevating effort is needed, l)ut Darwinism knows nothing of 
this. It is struggle for life wliich is always debasing and 
repressing, to which it appeals. It assumes tiiat evil and sin 
are means of progress, or that progress is possible in them. 
Experience and our moral intuitions declare that they are in- 
herently, necessarily and invariably polluting and debasing. 
They are causes of degradation, and can be nothing else. It 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 185 

assumes that man has progressed in them, or by means of 
them. He has progressed only as he has rejected or aban- 
doned them. It assumes that man could exist for a long time 
HI a state of brutal, instinctive animalism, or brutal, idiotic 
savagery. Common sense says he would liave perished in 
either condition. It makes man begin in such a condition, 
and progress in it, and by means of it, and out of it. Com- 
mon sense says if he began in such a condition, he would have 
sank lower until he perished. 

Darwinism makes a farce of our moral and religious na- 
ture. It has been cheating man foi* thousands of years with 
ideas that are the most palpable absurdities. It makes a 
cheat of our rational nature, for it denies its most catholic and 
fundamental intuitions. It ignores the regnant ' part of our 
nature, or makes a cheat of all nature. It denies the all-per- 
vading law, order, system and plan, that pervades every atom, 
system and the universe. It fails to account for it, and ren- 
ders it an impossibility and absurdity. It insults universal 
reason by denying teleology in nature. Operation of physical 
causes can not produce teleological results. They are mere 
conditions used by intelligence. The results are volition, 
thoughts, emotion and conscience. Darwin denies all tele- 
ology in nature — all that common sense has ever seen in 
nature, and in utter contradiction of his own language. The 
conditions assumed by Darwin, the power of adaptation to 
conditions, the production of variations in one direction, from 
lower to higher, from simple to complex, from useless to use- 
ful, the maintenance of these variations in a co-ordinated 
series, in an upward direction, and the law of heredity, 
which he relies on to preserve these improvements, are the 
very highest instances of teleology. He ascribes a teleology 
of a divine character to unintelligent conditions. Darwinism 
denies all causation, thus rejecting the fundamental concep- 
tion of reason, science and philosophy, and a fundamental 
intuition of our reason. It protests against the fundamental 
regulative idea of science classifying phenomena by means of 
ideal conceptions. It denies the essential characteristics of 
natural processes, order, co-ordination, adjustment and adapta- 
16 



186 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

tion, in system, method and plan, exhibiting design, pur- 
pose, with prevision of, and provision for, all that exists, in 
accordance with law of highest reason. It refuses to recog- 
nize the realization of the highest conceptions of reason in 
nature, conceptions which alone can construe nature, and 
Avithout which we could have no conception of nature. It 
ignores the highest and ruling part of nature. It drags man 
down to a level with the brutes. It makes every thing in 
the universe the result of mere force, physical force. It 
makes life the result of a brutal struggle for existence. It 
gives a low, brutal, violent, ferocious origin to every thing in 
nature, and to our highest nature. It denies, and would ex- 
terminate, the moral and religious element of our nature, for 
it deprives man of all spontaneity, will, and moral nature and 
character. Its legitimate results are seen in the new-fangled 
brutalities of cremation of the dead, and euthanasia or ad- 
vocacy of suicide. To be consistent with its philosophy of 
the origin of life, society and all that exists — that they be- 
gan in a brutal struggle for life, and are the result of the 
slaughter of all else by the strong, and the survival of 
strength and might, it ought to advocate the destruction of 
the sickly, the weak, and the unfit. The course of certain 
savage nations in destroying the aged and helpless, is the 
highest of wisdom, and if they are eaten, as some of them do, 
we have the most perfect realization of utility and of this 
new philosophy. 

It makes fear, animalism, ferocity, and brutality the origin 
of all progress, and it can only lead to such results. It over- 
looks all rational, moral and benevolent factors in its theory 
of evolution. It has no place for mercy, pity, forgiveness, 
benevolence, love, saving the weak, sickly, deformed, par- 
doning the erring, and reforming and forgiving the sinning. 
Its theory of brute-force and the survival of the fittest, that 
is, the strongest, knows nothing of this. It makes of such 
acts a violation of nature and a crime. They are opposed to 
the law of nature, and to what produced and produces prog- 
ress. The man who relieves the suffering, or the erring, or 
unfortunate, or elevates the fallen, or forgives and saves the 



i 



FAILIJRES OF EVOLUTION. 187 

sinning, commits as great a crime as the one who helps a 
criminal out of the hands of the officer of the law. It makes 
of patriotism, philanthropy, and martyrdom, lunacy and 
crimes. They are, in nature, opposed to all conceptions of 
this system, to its tendencies, and to its only logical conclu- 
sions. Do not say we are too severe. What is the origin 
and source of all progress, ac(3ording to Darwinism ? A 
brutal struggle for life. What is the source of all progress? 
A survival of the fittest, or a triumph of might. What is 
the controlling force in the universe ? Irrational force. What 
is the end of man? Annihilation. What is the controlling 
principle of conduct? Selfish utility. Then what founda- 
tion for patriotism, martyrdom, or philanthrophy, self-denial, 
self-sacrifice, and self-abnegation ? Th«y are madness, if 
Darwin be true. Nay ; they are a crime, for they are a sacri- 
fice of the fittest for the unfit, and a violation of every prin- 
ciple of prudential or selfish utility — its highest principle. It 
would rob human nature of its most exalted features, and of 
its noblest ideas and aspirations, and strongest incentives to 
progress and elevation, the spring and fountain of all that is 
noble in humanity. 

What would be the tendency of the reception of a system 
so brutalizing in its origin, and so materializing in its teach- 
ing, so hopeless in its conclusions ? The leading sentiment of 
progress in all ages, the animating principle of reform, the 
leading themes of poetry, painting, literature, art, and thought 
in all ages, have been religious in origin and character. Would 
Darwinism give us a Homer, a Guatema, an Abraham, a 
Moses, a David, a Paul, a Socrates, a Plato, a Virgil, a 
Dante, a Milton, a Shakespeare, a Locke, a Newton, a Bacon, 
or a Washington? Would Darwinism have given to humanity 
an Iliad, a Book of Job, the Psalms of David, the ^neid, a 
Paradise Lost, and the immortal productions of poetry, paint- 
ing, sculpture, and music? Would it give us the sublime 
morality of even systems of Paganism, the religions of China, 
Persia, Chaldea, Egypt, and Greece, or the divine morality 
of the New Testament ? 

Darwinism commits logical suicide, and refuses to accept 



188 THE PEOBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

its own standard, and the highest results of its own system 
of development. Man is the highest product of develop- 
ment, and his rational, moral, and religious nature is the 
very highest result of evolution. The rational, moral, and 
religious ideas of God, religion, creation, divine government, 
and providence, are the loftiest conceptions of man's highest 
nature, the crown of the pyramid of evolution."^ If evolution 
be consistent, true, and according to law, as the evolutionist 
claims, these intuitions are true, for they are its highest prod- 
uct or result. If they are not true, then the evolution that 
produced them as its crowning effort, is not reliable or con- 
sistent, is false and a cheat. If evolution be according to 
law, these ideas are the highest expression of that law. The 
evolutionist must accept them, or reject the law that he 
contends controls the universe, the only laAV he recognizes. By 
what right does the evolutionist reject these ideas, the highest 
expression of the only law he recognizes, and the crowning re- 
sult of evolution ? By what right does the evolutionist, taking 
human nature — human reason — as his standard, reject the 
highest and most universal intuitions of man's reason, and 
moral and religious nature, the regnant element in his nature ? 
Darwinism, also, is the destruction of all true science. It 
is a mere guess or hypothesis, and it substitutes speculation 
and queries for inductive reasoning. It rejects all the cath- 
olic and regulative ideas of reason, by which scientific labor 
is conducted. It rejects causation and all inquiry into causa- 
tion, especially efficient and final causes, the real objects of 
scientific research. It rejects the great ideas of order, adap- 
tation, adjustment, design, plan, and purpose, method, system, 
and law, of reason and thought as realized in nature. It 
rejects the rational ideas, connecting links of thought, which 
alone make the phenomena intelligible. It renders the course 
of nature a path along which mind did not travel, and ren- 
ders the phenomena incoherent and unintelligible. It strips 
them of all connecting links of thought, and renders them 
incapable of being construed by mind. It substitutes minute 
observations and assumptions and speculations on them, for 
scientific generalizations, by means of catholic, regulative 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 189 

ideas of reason. It substitutes, gatlieriiig the facts of nature 
into bundles, and labeling them, and laying th^em away on 
the shelves of speculation, for broad induction and rational 
unitizing them, by the regulative ideas of reason. 

Tyndall's Belfast speech admits that evolution does not 
answer the question, "What is the origin or the ground of 
all that exists?" — admits that it ought to be answered — that 
the position of the positivist, that we should not concern 
ourselves with this question, is untenable, absurd, and one 
that it is impossible for the mind to accept — that the old 
position of the materialist, attributing every thing to blind, 
irrational matter and force, is absurd and indefensible — that 
with the materialist's former conception of matter and physi- 
cal force, it is absurd to attribute all being to them. He 
has either to accept the thcist's position, or attribute to inatter 
more than the materialist has ascribed to it — he has to accept 
mind as the source of all being, or get up a new conception 
of matter. He attempts to evade theism by audaciously 
foisting into matter all that the thoist attributes to intelligent 
cause, thus admitting that the ground or origin of all being 
must have all that the theist demands that it should have. 
He tramples under foot every principle of reason, when he 
attributes to matter what belongs to mind. He does not tell 
us how this wonderful matter came into being. Is this po- 
tency he claims for matter inherent or imparted? Is this 
potency intelligent or unintelligent ? If intelligent, he has 
made a god of matter. If unintelligent, an infinite fetich. 
Will he submit his faith to the same test as he demanded in 
the prayer test? It certainly is as reasonable in one case as 
the other. Will he bring out of matter this potency or dem- 
onstrate that it is in it by actual experiment? 

Then Darwinism does not rest on a single observed fact in 
nature; nor on an extension of such changes as are now pro- 
duced back into the past ; noi* on an extension of such causes 
as now act back into the past. Nor can it point to a period 
in the past and say, "We can prove that such causes existed 
and operated then, as the theory appeals to," or show that 
such changes were then produced. The causes it appeals to 



190 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

exist now, but without a particle of its results. It is like the 
painter who was employed to paint the passage of the Red 
Sea by the children of Israel. When his employer came to 
see the picture he found it a waste of water and waves. He 
asked, " Where are the Israelites ?" " They have gone over," 
said the painter. ''Where are the Egyptians ? " '' They have 
gone under ! " So Darwin's causes, like the Israelites, have 
all gone over, and his effects, like the Egyptians, have gone 
under. The denial of causation in these speculations has 
been often exposed. So also has the denial of intelligent 
causation. The utter abnegation of all reason and sense dis- 
played in this, it is impossible to express adequately. Mrs. 
Stowe's Topsy has always been regarded as one of the ex- 
travagantly absurd and comical characters of literature, and 
the most absurd and extravagant of Topsy's conceits was, that 
*' She never had no father nor mother. She just growed." 
But this most absurd and ludicrous of all extravagant con- 
ceits is now the quintessence of philosophy, and the ultima 
thide of science. Had Topsy just extended her philosophy to 
every body, and said, "Nobody never had no father nor 
mother. They just growed," she then ought to have been 
placed at the head of the evolutionist school of philosophy, 
as the Pythagoras of j^ractical science, and her utterance 
would be the ipse dixit of the whole fraternity. "Nothing 
never had no cause. They just growed. They never had no 
author. They just comed!" Darwin seems to feel the 
pressure of this absurdity in starting; for he concedes the 
creation of a few germs, with an inbreathing of life, by the 
Creator. If this Creator be more than a mere metaphor or 
figurehead for his system, he concedes the whole question. 
He admits creation, the necessity of creation, as a starting 
point — the necessity of a creator to create that which is to be 
developed, and to inbreathe all that is to be evolved. The 
same necessity presses at every step in the process of develop- 
ment, and is evaded by covering up the evolution of every 
thing out of nothing, under an appeal to things as causes that 
have not a particle of causal efficiency in them. 

We have already called attention to the jugglery with 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 191 

words and phrases played by this system. By means of this 
all its assumptions and its continually begging the ^vhole ques- 
tion is hidden. Take the phrase natural selection. It is used 
like the magic phrases of ancient magicians to conjure our 
universe into being. Natural selection does the work of in- 
finite wisdom and infinite power. Darwin cheats his readers 
and himself continually with this mirage of his own brain. 
Selection implies intelligence. Selection is the act of intelli- 
gence. Hence, when we are told natural selection accom- 
l)lished certain results, we are cajoled out of an appreciation 
of the absurdity of the assumption. Natural selection ! 
What selects? Blind, irrational matter and force? If that 
phrase natural selection were cast to one side, and the phrase 
blind, irrational matter and force substituted, Darwinism would 
vanish like mist. By substituting a phrase implying intelli- 
gence, between us and matter and force, our reason is cajoled 
and cheated of a sense of the absurdity of the speculation. If 
Darwin had been compelled to insert blind, irrational matter 
and force in his books, wherever '* natural selection" and 
"nature" occurs, they would never have been written, so 
gross would have been the absurdity, and they certainly never 
would have been read through, for every mind would have 
exclaim^^d as he read what was attributed to blind, irrational 
matter and force (and is now by the convenient personifica- 
tion contained in the phrase natural selection): "This man 
is, mad, or believes all mankind to be mad. Blind, irrational 
matter and force do all this!" Let the reader then substitute 
blind, irrational matter and force for these convenient personi- 
fications of them, "natural selection" and "nature," and 
Darwinism will vanish like the fabric of a dream. Another 
caution. Let the reader as he proceeds in the investigation 
of the system, ask at each step, "Now how much of this is 
fact? How much is proved? And how much is assumed? 
How much is mere guess or speculation or wholesale assump- 
tion of the question ? " And the system would vanish like 
a dream before a waking mind. Take the phrase protoplasm. 
In it is an assumption of a substance containing properties 
of both organic and inorganic matter. It is an attempt to 



192 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

evade and cover up a difficulty, and to bring together the op- 
posite sides of the chasm between life and dead matter. But 
there is no such substance. Experience declares that or- 
ganized matter, and organized matter alone, has some of these 
properties. Inorganic matter alone has others. They are 
never found together in the same substance. They are mutu- 
ally destructive of each other, and antagonistic, and can 
not exist in the same substance. They assume the self-exist- 
ence of matter and force, with all that exists potentially in 
them. Self-existent matter and force, in a state of endless 
progression, is something of which we know nothing. All 
progress we know or have any experience of, is in cycles. 
They assume an infinite susceptibility to variation and infinite 
conditions to produce variation. Of this we have no knowl- 
edge. It contradicts all experience, and knowledge. Dar- 
winism sustains about the same relation to zoology and bi- 
ology, that alchemy does to chemistry. The analogies of 
tlie development of the tree out of the seed, or of the man 
out of the ovum, furnishes no basis for evolution. Tree was 
potentially in the seed. Man was potentially in the ovum. 
We have observed such developments in countless cases for 
thousands of years. But in evolution things are evolved 
out of what does 'not contain them. Can not be proved to 
be it. Are not evolved out of it in experience. The course 
of the seed and tree, ovum and man, is revolution in a 
cycle, and not evolution in an endless ascending scale. Ev- 
olution has never been observed in a single instance. De- 
velopment of a germ furnished by an organism into a 
similar organism that was germinally present in it, is not 
similar to the evolution of any thing into something else not 
germinally present in it. They are not the same, but radically 
different. 

Spencer gives a supposed case of an animal, that by some 
happenstance got an unusually heavy head, and then supposes 
that natural selection preserves it. He has to assume that such 
a happenstance was possible — that an animal could suddenly 
acquire a head unusually heavy. Then that conditions would 
be co-ordinated so as to preserve it. Experience teaches nature 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 193 

would eliminate such a monstrosity. Then he assumes that all 
this would be transmitted ; and then quietly assumes that the dif- 
ference between the bison and the ox arose in this way. All that 
he can appeal to as really existing in all his assumptions would 
at best but permit such a phenomenon to exist, should it ever 
occur. Then he assumes that these conditions that merely 
permit existence are the cause of the existence. We have 
already often called attention to the fact that evolution makes 
causes of its conditions, when they have not one particle of 
causal efficiency. This is proved by the fact that they do not 
produce the same results at the present. Also, under the same 
conditions, precisely opposite results are produced. Common 
sense has even said, ^' Like causes produce like effects." Modern 
science says the same causes produces exactly opposite effects. 
Inductive philosophy in the hands of Bacon, said, " Like effects 
must have been produced by like causes." Modern philosophy 
says precisely opposite results must have flowed from the same 
causes. Common sense says that the conditions, if causes at all, 
could not have produced such effects, and indeed must have 
produced precisely opposite effects. When pressed with these 
difficulties an appeal is made to unknown causes, and refuge 
is taken in ignorance. " We do not claim to know all the 
causes, nor all the effects of the causes known. Unknown con- 
ditions may produce the different results, or there may be un- 
known influences in the known conditions." Then when they 
present to us these now unknown conditions or influences, we 
will be bound to notice them, and not till then. A hiding in 
ignorance is an end to argument. 

We object that conditions are not causes, but they merely 
permit results to persist when produced by causes. The results 
are of such a nature, and have such characteristics, that they 
could not have been produced by causes of the class to which 
they appeal ; and the unknown causes or conditions, bemg 
of the same class, could not have produced them. The cause 
to which the theist appeals is not unknown or unknowable. 
It is adequate to the production of the phenomena. The char- 
acteristics of the phenomena demonstrate that the cause is of 
such a nature and character. The opposite of all this is the 
17 



194 THE PROBLEM OF PliOBLEMS. 

case with the evolutionist and his conditions. It is a favorite 
evasion of the evolutionist to represent the theory of creation 
as without cause, law, order, or use of means, and as in viola- 
tion of all ideas of causation, law, order, and science. It gives 
the only cause adequate to the phenomena, and the cause that 
common sense investigating the characteristics of the phen- 
omena says must have produced the phenomena. It gives an 
intelligent cause for the phenomena that must have been pro- 
duced by intelligence. Creation is in accordance with law, 
rational law, and recognizes order, and gives order to the men- 
tal and moral phenomena of the universe. It gives a different 
cause, law, order and means from those presented by the evo- 
lutionist. It gives rational cause, law, order, and rational 
means, and use of means, as common sense demands. Materi- 
alism gives physical cause and law without lawgiver, order 
without mind, system without thought, and means that are 
not means at all, or that could not produce the phenomena, and 
common sense rejects them. The difference between the un- 
knowable of Spencer and of the theist is this : The theist ad- 
mits that he can not comprehend God, but he claims that 
common sense declares that the cause must have been an in- 
telligent cause, and possessed in infinity certain attributes. 
He claims that he can, and does, apprehend the cause and his 
attributes, by the characteristics of the phenomena. Spencer 
denies these cardinal deductions arising from sound inductive 
philosophy. He makes the cause unknowable when the char- 
acteristics of the phenomena prove it to be an intelligence, 
and one possessing certain attributes. 

When driven from other refuges the final one of Darwinism 
is a vast period of time. The causes are not observed to pro- 
duce the phenomena now, and we can have no evidence for 
want of opportunity to investigate the phenomena, because the 
time required is so vast. Give the conditions sufficient time 
and they will produced the results. Now time is not a cause, 
nor a factor in causation. It imparts no causal efficiency, much 
less can it change into causes what have not a particle of 
causal efficiency. A western Indian once sowed a field with 
powdpr expecting to raise a crop. He reasoned like the evo- 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 195 

lutionist, that conditions, unintelligent conditions, would do 
what intelligence alone could do. When the pioneers laughed 
at him, had he replied, *' Give my powder time enough and it 
will grow," he would have been a philosopher of the modern 
scientific school. Time will make powder grow as easily as it 
can make unintelligence produce intelligence, or what is des- 
titute of life produce life. No amount of time can make mat- 
ter evolve Darwin's primordial germ. The experiments of Dr. 
Bastian with the microscope demonstrate that the vegetable 
cell has a radically different structure from the animal cell. 
He clearly demonstrates : 

I. There is no such primordial germ as Darwin claims. 

II. That vegetable and animal cells are radically structur- 
ally different. 

III. That organic nourishment will destroy vegetable cells 
and nourish animal cells, and inorganic nourishment will 
nourish vegetable cells, but destroy animal cells. 

Hence, one can not be developed into the other, for their 
means of sustenance are different. What develops one, 
destroys the other. 

But to call attention to all the assumptions of Darwinism, 
would be to repeat our course of argument already given. 
One inconsistency must be noticed. These theorists differ 
widely in their speculations and declarations, and yet we must 
accept them all unquestioned, although they are all contra- 
dictory, and agreed in nothing but the assumptions that their 
speculations are the truth and must be accepted. 

Scarce one year has elapsed since the greatest of naturalists 
of our generation died. Though no bigot or theologian, and, 
indeed, rather rationalistic in his views, his testimony on this 
question as a man of science, was clear and decisive, and the 
more valuable because coming from one whose tendencies 
might be expected to be in the opposite direction. He de- 
clares that "Evolution should be confined to embryology, to 
the development of a germ into an animal cr plant. There 
is no development of species. It is a closed cycle. The great 
archetypal ideas, the great types into which nature can be 
divided, never pass into each other. Each life is developed 



196 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

according to the law of its own species. There is no such law 
in nature as survival of fittest. Variations do not increase 
until they amount to specific differences. Sexual selection en- 
dangers existence as often as it accords with it. Geologic 
sequence is by successive steps, following an archetypal idea, 
and not by derivation. The most delicate forms have been 
preserved in geologic strata, hence we can not infer to dis- 
appearance of types to save a speculation. There is no evi- 
dence of derivation of higher from lower species. I believe 
that these correspondencies between the different aspects of 
animal life, are the manifestations of mind acting consciously 
with intention toward an object from beginning to end. This 
view is in accordance with the workings of our own mind. 
It is an intuitive recognition of mental power, with which we 
are ourselves akin, manifesting itself in nature. For this 
reason, more than any other, do I hold that this world of 
ours is not the result of the action of unconscious organic 
forces, but the work of a conscious, intelligent power. Noth- 
ing ever comes out of any germ but what was inherited from 
the parent, and consequently given to the first germ or first 
parent at creation. The universe is the product of conscious 
mind, and exhibits an intellectual unity, and not a material 
connection. The details falls to pieces if we attempt to test 
them by any such connection." Such is the testimony of the 
greatest naturalist of our age. It was to the Infinite Creator 
that he consecrated his school on Penikese Island. 

We will dismiss evolution and Darwinism by applying to 
them the tests of inductive science : 

T. The causes to which it appeals are known to exist. 

II. They are known to produce such phenomena. 

III. They are adequate to account for all the phenomena. 
In ap] (lying the first test, the utter shallowness of these specu- 
lations appears in a glance. The conditions to which it ap- 
peals are not causes at all. They are not known to have ex- 
isted, or to exist now as causes. Many of its causes never 
had, and do not have any existence, except in the specula- 
tions of tliese theorists. The very opposite results have arisen 
among these conditions. The second test is equally decisive. 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 197 

Darwin, Huxley, and Thompson confess that these conditions 
have never been known to produce the results the theory 
ascribes to them. They are utterly powerless to produce 
such results. The very opposite results have arisen among 
them. The third test is equally conclusive. They utterly 
fail to account for a single item of the phenomena that re- 
ally needs explanation. We have given over one hundred 
items, and the vital items of the problem that they utterly 
fail to touch. Hence, tried by these tests, these theories are 
utter failures. They utterly fail to account for the problem 
of being. They fail to meet a single demand of the problem. 
One who accepts them does so, not on account of incredulity, 
nor as an act of sublime faith, a sublime act of philosophic 
faith, as one tells us ; but with the rant of the enthusiast : 
*'I believe it, because it is impossible." If one wishes to see 
credulity and assumption and belief in utter lack of testi- 
mony, belief in violation of reason, and in opposition to tes- 
timony, let him read these speculations. 

We will now devote a few pages to a review of the theory 
of historic development, of which we gave a brief outline 
in a former chapter. One of the issues at the present time 
between the skeptical and the religious world is, "What was 
man's primitive condition?" The Hebrew rabbins taught 
that he began a state of almost divine vigor of mind, with 
super-angelic intelligence and knowledge, and that none of his 
posterity have ever equaled him in knowledge or intelligence. 
The religious world have generally adopted more or less of 
this theory, and it was a favorite position of the late Alex- 
ander Campbell. The evolutionist runs to the opposite ex- 
treme, and claims that he began in a state of brutal, instinct- 
ive animalism, as a development from lower orders of ani- 
mals, or a state of brutal, idiotic savagery as a development 
from lower and animal-like types of the genus homo now ex- 
tinct. Neither of these theories are correct. They are as- 
sumed because the necessities of the systems of these advo- 
cates demand them, and not because of their proof or truthful- 
ness. They are not based on a careful examination and in- 
duction of the facts of the case, and these facts, properly in- 



198 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

terpreted, clearly disprove them. Experience declares that 
if man ever were an animal, he would have remained one, for 
there is no spontaneous progress of animals. If not an ani- 
mal, whence came the difference between him and animals? 
The fatal fallacy of this whole theory is that it assumes that 
brutality, pollution, and animalism are elevating. If man 
ever were in such a condition, and an animal, he would have 
remained in that condition forever. If he were in such a 
state, and a man, brutality, pollution, and animalism would 
have sunk him lower. So teaches reason, experience, and 
common sense. 

The opposite theory of the rabbins is as untenable. Knowl- 
edge is acquired by experience, and comes through an exer- 
cise of the senses and faculties of the mind. The first man 
had neither of these, and was without knowledge, and the 
society and civilization based on such knowledge. The scrip- 
tural account clearly teaches that man had not knowledge 
sufficient to make garments for himself, and had to be taught 
language, agriculture, and the nature and uses of animals. 
The theological notion is fabricated to sustain the theories of 
original sin and Adam's federal headship. Adam is endowed 
with super-angelic ability and knowledge, and with great 
theological knowledge. He knew he represented the race, 
and that he chose for them, and what would be the results 
of his conduct. The Scriptures really teach nothing of such 
speculations. The entire account of the creation of man, his 
history in Eden and the transgression, is simple and child- 
like. It teaches nothing of the tremendous effects of the trans- 
gression on man's nature immediately after the transgres- 
sion, or on nature at large, that we meet in theological specu- 
lations. All these speculations concerning man's primitive con- 
dition, and these tremendous and elaborate theological systems, 
are not even hinted in the Scriptures. The scriptural ac- 
count agrees with the analogies of geology. Man was crea- 
ted physically, mentally and morally pure, and more vigorous 
and active than he has been since corrupted and depraved by 
violation of law. But he began in a condition of child-like 
ignorance, innocence and simplicity. The cradle of the race 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 199 

was in western Asia. Man had one common origin in ances- 
try, one common language, one set of historic traditions, that 
obtain, or at least traces of them, all over the earth. There 
are a number of primitive historic religions. These have 
certain historic traditions in common. These common his- 
toric traditions and religions are based on a common sub- 
stratum of truth, and are various versions of this basis of 
truth, more or less corrupted by tradition. Among these his- 
toric traditions are creation, primitive innocence, angelic inter- 
course, longevity of the race, instruction in language, arts 
and knowledge, violation of law, loss of innocence, angelic 
intercourse, andof longevity. These are found in all old re- 
ligions, all over the earth, and can be traced back to one com- 
mon origin — back into the cradle of the race, and are based 
on truth. 

All languages can be traced back to root languages. Of 
these there are but a few, and they can be traced to one com- 
mon stock, or proved to have had one common origin, or 
central, or basis language. These root languages can be 
traced back to the cradle of the race, and originated in it. 
All races can be traced back to one common stock in the 
cradle of the race. These historic traditions can be traced 
back to one common origin and starting point in the cradle 
of the race. All religions can be traced back to one parent 
stem, and to the cradle of the race. These historic traditions 
and religions place man before us in a state of purity, vigor 
and intellectual power, and with elements of society, knowl- 
edge and civilization. They have absolutely no traces of 
primitive savagery and brutality, such as is depicted in the 
theory of historic development They place man before us in 
tlie enjoyment of a simple, primitive civilization, family, gov- 
ernment, society and arts. The primitive nations used metals 
at the time of our first historic knowledge of them. It is 
assumed that, back of all this, there was a long period of 
brutality and savagery, and a stone, a club and animal age 
or ages, when men used stone implements, clubs, and lived 
like animals. There is not one particle of evidence that such 
states preceded the use of metals, for we find man using met- 



200 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

als in our earliest historic knowledge of him, in the cradle of ^ 
the race. No instance of spontaneous elevation from these 
lower states of society can be given. We have not one scrap 
of evidence that man passed through an animal, a club-usiug 
and a stone-using age. The speculations of Lubbock and his 
school are as destitute of any foundation in established fact 
as the tales of Gulliver. Their theory demands that man be- 
gan in the lower animals, and passed through these lower 
stages of society ; and it is assumed that he has done so, and 
we have descriptions of man's passage through them, as posi- 
tive and circumstantial as though these speculators had lived 
through all these ages, and witnessed all that is described on 
the pages of their fictions. Neither archaeology, nor compar- 
ative philology, nor historic traditions, nor historic religions 
will sustain any such fabrications. The best method of meet- 
ing them is to ask these romancers to present proof for their 
assertions. These states of society have existed cotemporane- 
ously in all human history. All the instances of such society, 
that come within our knowledge, have been since the civiliza- 
tion of the oLler nations, and their use of metals. They are 
degradations of man, and not his original condition, as his 
traditions and religious ideas, which he retains after his de- 
scent into them, clearly show. Also his brain is far larger 
than his condition in such states demands, and proves that 
such states are a degradation. His languages and ideas, that 
he ascribes to his ancestors, are above his condition. They 
have never been brought up out of animalism, but have been 
dragged down into savagery from higher conditions. The 
traces of man in caves and in the debris of villages on the sea 
shore, or in lakes where man built villages on piles over the 
w^ater, have been assumed by evolutionists to be anterior to 
the historic period, but there is not one particle of evidence 
to sustain such a position ; for we have cave dwellers and 
lacustrine villages, and such states of society now, and have 
had during all history. Then the tumuli of Denmark, and the 
lacustrine cities of Switzerland, and every instance of such 
remains relied on by the evolutionist^?, have been brought 
within the historic period. The most reliable instance, as 



FAILUKES OF EVOLUTION. 201 

* 
they claimed, was, by Dr. Andrews, proved to come within 

2,500 years. We repeat that the assumptions of the age of 
these remains, and the assertions of evolutionists, that man 
has passed through such periods, are without any particle of 
proof. 

The assumption that man has passed through a period of 
animalism, without religion, into an animal-like dread of 
what injured, or an animal-like liking for what benefited him, 
such as the dog feels towards his friends or enemies, into 
fetichism, and out of that into polytheism, and from polythe- 
ism into monotheism, is not only without proof, but contra- 
dicted by all the facts of philology and comparative language, 
comparative religion, historic religions, historic traditions and 
archseology. All historic traditions point back to an original 
condition of primitive monotheism. All root or historic re- 
ligions point back to a simple monotheism, back of them, and 
from which they were derived by a corruption of the original 
monotheism. All root languages are monotheistic in their 
oldest religious terms, and names of God and religious ideas. 
The primitive and root ideas of all such words is monotheistic. 
The historic traditions of the world point back to a period of 
monotheism, and contain traces of it. Monotheism was the 
esoteric doctrine of the Indian, Iranian, Chinese, Chaldean, 
Arabian, Egyptian, Phoenician and Grecian priests. So also 
it was of the Druids and higher priests of northern Europe. 
All the intelligent nations of Africa, even the Hottentots and 
CafFres, have, back of their idolatry, a Great-Great or Su- 
preme. The American Indians, back of their superstitions, 
have a Great Spirit. These ideas were not reached by an 
ascent through fetichism and polytheism, and by speculation, 
not even in the case of Asiatic, African and European phil- 
osophies, but were retained from a primitive monotheism, 
after the mass of the people had sank into polytheism and 
fetichism. The Chinese teachers, Indian priests and philos- 
ophers, the Iranian magi, the Chaldean and Egyptian priests 
and the Grecian philosophers, all say they have these ideas 
from their ancestors, the fathers of the race. In the clearest 
and best reasonings of Socrates and Plato, they appeal to what 



202 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

has been handed down from the fathers of the race. The 
terms they use are found in the root words of their language, 
and their ideas and words correspond with the root ideas and 
words of these root hmguages, the source from whence they 
say they obtained them. 

Fetichism is not peculiar to lower stages of society, for 
some nations have been fetichists, although highly civilized 
in other respects. Nor is fetichism peculiar to the earlier pe- 
riods of history, or the earlier portion of the life of our race, 
for some nations are fetichists now. Again, monotheism ex- 
isted, as we have shown, at the earliest historic period of our 
race, and was then the common belief of all mankind. Again, 
monotheism is not peculiar to higher or civilized states of so- 
ciety, for comparatively rude tribes have been monotheistic. 
Nor is monotheism the product of late states of society and 
advanced states of society, for it was the common belief of the 
race at the beginning and of the simple state of society pre- 
vailing then. As man progresses in civilization he does not 
spontaneously cast to one side fetichism or polytheism, or 
spontaneously advance into monotheism. Nations have re- 
tained one or the other of these types of religion throughout 
great changes in civilization. Again, comparative religion, 
or an investigation and comparison of all religions, proves 
that all religions, except the Hebrew and Christian, are 
purer and simpler the nearer we approach their origin. As 
we trace them away from their beginning they become elabo- 
rate, corrupt, formal, ceremonial and external. As men have 
advanced in civilization they have not emancipated them- 
selves from impure idolatry, but have become more profligate 
and corrupt, until the corruption and effeminacy of their re- 
ligious and moral nature has affected their rational and phys- 
ical nature, and they have sunk into •barbarism. Nothing 
can save man from this but a pure religion. Such a religion 
he can not devise for himself. It must be revealed. Man's 
corruption of all religions and the corruption of all his at- 
tempts to construct religions, prove this. Nations have sunk 
into polytheism and fetichism, as they relapsed and sank in 
society, civilization and government. They will ever do so 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. ^^03 

without the regulative control and the lifting and sustaining 
influence of a pure religion, as a dynamic force in national 
life, originating this progress for which the evolutionist con- 
tends, regulating and directing it, urging man upward, and 
sustaining him in his progress. Religion is the regnant ele- 
ment in man's nature. It is the origin of his noblest aspir- 
ations and enthusiasms. It is the principal source of that 
progress for which the evolutionist contends. It is the regu- 
lative force of that progress. It is a lifting power in it, and 
the sustaining and cheering influence in it. 

Then there is absolutely no proof of this theory of historic 
development. On the contrary, all the known facts disprove 
it. This theory of historic development is assumed as a neces- 
sary part of the theory of evolution, and assumed because it 
is necessary as a part of that theory. There is an excess of 
credulity and a perfect romance of faith exhibited in building 
it up on the small basis there is for it. The whole theory of 
myths, and the mythical origin of religious ideas, is as wild 
and extravagant as the tales of the Arabian Nights. A few 
facts, a few jingling analogies in words or their meaning, and 
out of this is built a system, like the palaces of the mirage 
of the desert, and about as real. While Max Miiller and his 
school are doing a great work, yet their theory of myths, and 
their speculations on them, almost render nugatory the good 
they are doing. To use an expressive Westernism, "They 
have myth on the brain," and have made a most extravagant 
myth of their speculations Time will dissipate the mountains 
of dreamy speculation under which the results of their labors 
are buried, and leave us a residuum of truth. The same is 
true of Lubbock and his school. He has gathered a mass of 
curious facts, and his speculations have about as much basis 
in them as astrology had in the facts of astronomy that were 
perverted in it. His whole theory is built on assumptions 
foreign to his facts, and utterly un sustained by his facts. He 
assumes his theory, and then weaves his facts into the elabor- 
ation of the theory, and assumes the place they should occupy 
in time and sequence, just as ancient speculators built up 
a priori their theories of the universe. The facts of his vol- 



204 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

umes, when examined apart from his theory, have no proof 
of it. 

There are certain religious ideas, traditions, rites and cere- 
monies that are found in all, or nearly all, religions. It is a 
mooted question how they had their origin. Certain theolo- 
gians claim that without revelation man would have had no 
religion or religious ideas. This is virtually saying tliat man 
has no religious nature. It virtually assumes, also, that reve- 
lation creates or implants within man his religious nature. It 
destroys all accountability and responsibility. It also renders 
revelation impossible, for if there be in man's nature no re- 
ligious element on which revelation builds, on which it is 
based, and to which it appeals, revelation is absolutely impos- 
sible. An attempted revelation would be like singing for a" 
deaf man, or painting a picture for a blind man. This posi- 
tion contradicts reason and the facts of history, geography 
and experience, and the express declarations of the Scriptures. 
The opposite extreme assumes all religion and all religious 
ideas to be entirely of human origin. The common historic 
traditions that we have enumerated, the common religious 
rites and ceremonies, and the important and essential features 
in which the Scriptures differ from other religions, can not be 
accounted for in this way. Theologians often claim that all 
religions, and religious ideas, are perverted plagiarisms from 
the Bible and its religion. This can not be the case with 
the religions of nations that never had any acquaintance with 
the Scriptures. Nor with nations that can trace the origin of 
their religions back to a period antedatmg the composition of 
the Scriptures. Nor can the opposite extreme be sustained, 
that the Scriptures, and the religion they inculcate, are the 
outgrowths of pre-existent paganism. The pre-existence of 
paganism, before the primitive monotheism described in the 
Book of Genesis, must be established by the skeptic. This 
can not be done. On the contrary, it can be positively and 
clearly shown that paganism is a perversion* of that original 
primitive monotheism. He must also establish the fact of the 
plagiarism, and not assume it. Showing that they have com- 
mon features will not accomplish it. It can be shown that 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 205 

the Chinese had elementary notions of nearly every important 
invention and discovery of modern European genius, and long 
before them, but every one knows there was no plagiarism. 
The true position is, that man had a common origin, language, 
stock of historic traditions, religion, a simple monotheism, 
based on a common revelation. This accounts for common 
historic traditions, rites and ceremonies. Man's nature is the 
same essentially the world over. His moral and religious na- 
ture works out the same great ideas, with common charac- 
teristics in the results. 

These two facts will account for the catholic features of all 
religions. As revelation and religion must be based on man's 
nature, and in accordance with it, revelation Avould also have 
these common features and catholic ideas. Indeed, the work 
of revelation is to elevate, purify and perfect these great ideas 
of man's religious and moral nature on which it is based and 
to which it appeals. Hence, common historic ideas, common 
rites and ceremonies have their origin in common primitive 
monotheism and common historic traditions, and common 
primitive revelation. Common catholic ideas have their 
origin in common religions and moral nature, and common 
tradition from common primitive monotheism, based on com- 
mon primitive revelation. Neither extreme is true, but the 
truth lies between, them. 

Another error often met in the theological world, is that the 
true religion must be and is utterly foreign and repugnant to 
our nature. Certain theologians seem to think that the truth- 
fulness and divine origin of a religion, or of a religious idea or 
system, can be measured by its repugnance to our nature, and 
the rebellion of our nature against it; just as certain doctors 
used to measure the excellence of their drugs by their nau- 
seousness. If a doctrine be of divine origin, it must be foreign 
and repugnant to our nature. If reason and nature rebels 
against a dogma, the reply is easy, it is to be expected, and, 
indeed, necessary, and an evidence of its divine origin. Tlie 
rationalist accepts the assertion that religion must be foreign 
and repugnant to our nature, and argues that this proves all 
religion to be inimical and hostile to our nature, and false. 



206 THE PROBLE]Nr OF PROBLEMS. 

The truth is that revelation nv.d religion, to regenerate oui 
nature, must be based on it and in accordance with it, appeal- 
ing to it, and allying itself with it, elevating and purifying it, 
and restoring it to its legitimate use. On the other hand, it is 
and must be opposed to and repugnant to the depravity and 
perversion of our nature in sin, and the corruption resulting 
from such perversion. Another extreme is that religion must 
be exclusively and entirely of divine origin and revealed to 
benefit man. If at all human, or having a human element, 
as far as it had such human element it would corrupt man. 
It must have a human element and a human side to reach 
man and influence him, or the Christ never would become the 
Son of man, God manifest in the flesh. The rationalist, tak- 
ing the position that religion must be entirely revealed and 
foreign to man, concedes its truth, and then he retorts on the 
religionists that such a religion would be enslaving and de- 
grading in its influence on man, overpowering in its influence, 
and destroying his individuality. Some contend that man 
needs and should have no religion. Some concede that he 
needs a religion, but contend that it must be entirely of 
human origin to be received by man, and benefit him. The 
true position is, that religion must have a human and a divine 
side or element. It must be based on man's nature and in 
accordance with it. It must also be a lifting force, and a 
standard; and to be such it must emanate from a source 
above man, and then it will aid and elevate him, and be to 
him an objective standard of conduct and truth. 

Another mooted question is, Did the writers of the Bible 
and its religious teachers ever borrow from other religions 
and systems? The idea advanced by some religionists, that 
there was no borrowing, and which they think is necessary 
to be maintained to maintain the divine origin, sanctity, 
superiority and authority of the Bible, can not be sustained; 
nor can the skeptical idea that it is all borrowed. The 
patriarchs had the common monotheism based on a common 
revelation, preserved by tradition until the choosing of Abra- 
ham. The Egyptians had truths, and religious ideas and 
ordinances, retained from primitive monotheism. So had 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 207 

Other nations. Man's religious nature had wrought certain 
things that were good. Moses took any thing that was good 
out of any of these, removed errors, and incorporated them 
into Hebraism. A very large element of Hebraism was re- 
tained from primitive religion, existing before its day, and 
taken from surrounding systems, and corrected and made fit 
to be used, and then incorporated into Hebraism. It is not 
necessary to tlie divinity of Hebraism, or Christianity, that 
they be entirely new and all revealed. The prophets took 
truth from the Persian and other systems. Christ and his 
apostles took truths from the Essenes, and Grecian and other 
philosophies. God was not under the necessity to work a 
miracle to produce a needed idea or truth, when it was 
already in existence. Christ accepted and used all the truths 
of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and especially of the Essenes, 
in his teachings. Overzealous and misguided friends and 
bigoted enemies should be willing to have the God of rev- 
elations use common sense, like other intelligent beings, in 
his work of revelation. 

But to return to our question after this digression. The 
scriptural account of man's primitive condition is rational, 
simple, natural, and is common sense. It agrees with geol- 
ogy, which teaches that each species was created perfect in 
its kind at first. Man was physically, mentally, and mor- 
ally more pure, vigorous and acute than he has been since 
he has been corrupted and injured by sin. He w^as a direct 
creation, as geology teaches all species to be, and as the im- 
mense chasm between him and lower animals declares. He 
was created a full grown man and woman, as he must have 
been to have existed at all, but was in a state of child-like 
ignorance, innocence, and simplicity. He had angelic inter- 
course, instruction, as he must have had to preserve his ex- 
istence and to take care of him at first. He had teaching 
in language, agriculture, and in the use and nature of ani- 
mals, and in protecting himself from the elements by cloth- 
ing and shelter. He was taken care of in his primitive ig- 
norance and simplicity, and taught to take care of himself. 
He lived longer than he has since his physical nature was 



208 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

corrupted by violation of law. He had a simple, child-like 
government, or control over him, in simple commands, de- 
signed to cultivate an obedient and loyal spirit in him, and 
disciplinary in cliaracter. He transgressed law, sinned, and 
fell. He lived a long time, in consequence of pristine vigor 
of body, for some generations, but gradually lost this longev- 
ity and vigor of body. He lost angelic intercourse. He had 
one language, one religion, a simple system of monotheism, 
based on a simple, brief revelation, through inspired men, 
and one set of historic traditions. There was a rapid civil- 
ization, in consequence of man's great longevity and pristine 
vigor. There was an urban civilization, with early use of 
metals and mechanic arts, and music and refinement, in the, 
family and descendants of Cain. Pastoral simplicity and 
comparative purity in the descendants of Seth. Man had 
simple government and family society and arts in the very 
infancy of the race. Such was the antediluvian history of 
our race, which lasted sixteen hundred years at least, and, 
perhaps, several thousand years. 

Noah's descendants had all these advantages, and started 
even above the condition of men before the flood, for Noah 
was evidently a prince among men before the flood. The 
descendants of Noah separated into families and tribes and 
nations. These families migrated from this common cradle 
of the race, in all directions, into all portions of the earth. 
They took with them dialects of this common language, and 
elements of this common religion, traditions and civilization. 
They built up empires, civilizations, religions, science, and 
arts, such as the Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Chaldean, Hebrew, 
Egyptian, Phoenician, Pelasgic, and Eutrusoan, and of the ofl*- 
shoots or successors of them, the Grecian and Roman. From 
one language sprang the root languages and their dialects — 
from one religion, this primitive monotheism, sprang the 
earlier historic religions and their offshoots. There arose 
among these peoples leading minds, that constructed national 
religions out of this common monotheism, or wliat remained 
of it, and its historic traditions. All these old religions were 
based on the common primitive monotheism, and contained 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 209 

more or less of its truth, and the common historic traditions 
of the race. Physical surroundings and inherent family char- 
acteristics influenced and modified these developments. As 
these master minds were above the national mind and life, so 
were these systems when constructed, and there was growth 
and progress until the measure of the religiou was filled. 
Then this religion either petrified and fossilized the national 
life, as in China and India, or the national mind cast it oif 
and launched out into skepticism, as in Greece and Rome. 

In early generations, man had and could have only anthro- 
pomorphic ideas of God, just as the child can have only such 
ideas. Revelation had to be anthropomorphic and symbolic 
and of the character of object lessons. It was only by sym- 
bols and object lessons that man could be elevated and edu- 
cated up to an apprehension of spiritual ideas. Hence, there 
was a tendency toward idolatry. Man was conscious of his 
sinfulness. He did not like to retain, in his thought, the 
idea of a sin-hating and sin-punishing God, He dreaded and 
disliked to think of God's purity and holiness and justice. 
He stripped God of these attributes, and made him like him- 
self, and began his descent from monotheism into idolatry. 
The Semitic nations separated God's attributes from Himself, 
and personified and deified them. Aryan nations took the 
great forces of nature as representatives of the attributes of 
God, or God himself, personified and deified them, and lost 
sight of the real object of worship, and worshiped the sym- 
bol. There has been a continued descent and corruption of 
religions. They are simpler and purer the nearer we ap- 
proach their origin. As we pass down from this, they become 
formal, elaborate, ceremonial, and corrupt. 

Each nation had to solve the problems of arts of life, use- 
ful arts, fine arts, government, ethics, science, philosophy and 
religion. Inherent characteristics of the race or family, 
climate and physical circumstances, the character of master- 
minds, all influenced the solutions, each nation gave to these 
problems, and determined which ones they made most promi- 
nent. Some gave prominence to some of these problems, and 
others gave more prominence to others. Each nation gave a 
18 



210 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

peculiar solution to each problem. The Chinese were politi- 
cal economists; Indians were ideal philosophers, speculators, 
and dreamers; Chaldeans were warriors and empire builders; 
Phoenicians were navigators, merchants, and mechanics; 
Egyptians were agriculturalists, architects, and builders. The 
Greeks were almost cosmopolitan in character, in consequence 
of the character of the country, which combines nearly all 
the features of the world, and their position and intercourse 
with the world, and openness to its influences. The Romans 
developed municipal government and law. The Iranian peo- 
ple came nearest to an approximation to pure religion, and 
the Arabians retained the old pastoral simplicity and primi- 
tive religion longer than any other people. To the Hebrews 
was committed, by divine providence, the solution of the re- 
ligious problem of the race ; and, among them, was develop- 
ing, by divine providence, the religion for humanity. Other 
nations were, under divine providence, developing great 
truths in science, arts, polities, ethics, and philosophy. 

A many-sided development of all of these was thus secured. 
The race was advancing and preparing great truths to be 
used by the whole race, and by the universal religion designed 
for the race. Man had tried, by unaided human reason, to 
solve for himself the moral and religious problems of the 
race, but had failed. Great truths had been but partially 
apprehended. They were corrupted by error and perverted. 
Man had failed to reach universal truths and principles in 
religion, and especially to reach the great central truth of 
all religion. The human heart was driven back on itself 
in despair. The great ideas reached in science, arts, and 
philosophy, and the various developments of these, and the 
failure in religion and morals, were a part of the great 
preparation for the universal religion. God had chosen the 
Hebrew family, and to them he committed the solution of 
the religious problem of the race. 

In educating a nation, we should have normal schools for 
the education and preparation of teachers. We need a de- 
veloped, completed system of instruction to meet and over- 
come error. We need educated, disciplined teachers, a per- 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 211 

feet system, and pupils prepared to receive instruction. God 
chose the Hebrew family because they were better suited to 
his purpose than any others ; were a simple, pastoral people, 
less corrupted than other tribes, and had retained purest the 
primitive monotheism which God had given to the whole 
race, and which the race had more or less rejected and cor- 
rupted, and wandered away from God into idolatry. 

He used the Hebrew people as his normal school. He 
developed his religion into a perfected system, ready to en- 
counter error, and to meet the wants of the race, and by 
means of this development, and while developing it he pre- 
pared the Hebrew people to be the teachers of the race. 
The Hebrew religion alone became purer as it was developed; 
it alone was a progressive religion; it alone was always in 
advance of the national life, leading it onward, and calling 
it up to a higher life; it alone began in rude and element- 
ary ideas, and developed into a system of eternal, general 
principles, and universally applicable truths. In Christianity 
all the great catholic ideas of religion have been developed 
and perfected. In it the great ideas of all religions are 
stripped of error and perfected. It is a pleroma, fullness 
of all religions truth. It is a religion of eternal and uni- 
versally applicable truths and principles. God was in the 
Hebrew history, developing their religion into a universal 
religion for all men, and preparing the Hebrews to be its 
teachers, while he was in his providence preparing the world 
to receive it when perfected. He did not abandon all man- 
kind except the Hebrew people to themselves. He did not 
curse all mankind, and inflict evil on them, and evil only. 
He was in human history in his providence, ruling in and 
reigning over it, bringing out beneficial results, and pre- 
paring them for the perfect religion, and to be brought back 
to himself in the fullness of times. He was the Father in 
heaven of the nations, although they knew it not, and had 
forgotten him, and knew him not. 

The Bible does not teach that all the revelation that God 
gave to man, all revealed ideas, are recorded on its pages, 
are even mentioned in it historically. There was revelation 



212 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

before Moses — a revelation that God did not embody in the 
Pentateuch. Tliere were remains of this revelation in all old 
religions. TJie Vedas contain remnants of revelation, so 
does the Zend Avesta. During Hebrew history God did not 
confine all inspiration and miracle to the Hebrew people. 
No thoughtful, devout mind dare say there were not glim- 
merings of divine light, influences of God's Spirit in the soul 
struggles after God, in the life of a Guatema, a Plato, and 
others in heathen nations. 

Then there has been historic development in certain na- 
tions; none in others; and degradation in others. There has 
been, on the whole, a historic development of the race. Re- 
ligion has been the ruling element, the originating, leading, 
lifting, and sustaining power in this development. All poetry, 
fine arts, literature, ethics, government, and progress have 
been based on it, and have sprang out of it. Religion has 
not been an obstacle that has fettered progress, but has been 
its spring and source. We have an illustration of what a 
godless positivism will do in China. An atheistic, godless 
system of positivism has deprived the national mind and life 
of the upward, energizing tendency, the lifting and sustain- 
ing influence of religion, and it has fossilized into a mechan- 
ical, heartless, automatic system of routine. Development 
and progress are not towards atheism, but toward a purer 
and better obedience to a perfect system of religion. Prog- 
ress does not change man's nature, but develops it, hence it 
will not eliminate all religion out of man's life, or eradicate 
his religious nature ; but develop it towards perfection. 
Man's religious nature will ever be the regnant element in 
his nature, and the source and ruling force of all progress. 
Christianity is a system of eternal, general principles and 
universally applicable truths, that man can not outgrow. He 
may and will learn more of the infinite scope of its eternal, 
universal truths, and how to apply them better in regener- 
ating his life, but he can never outgrow them, or the religion 
in which they are embodied. 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 213 

Geology not a Science. 

We -will close this chapter with a few observations on the 
relation of science to the Scriptures, and especially of the so- 
called science of geology, which has been the field of attack 
on the Scriptures and religion for over a century. We think 
that the following principles should be accepted by all per- 
sons, and should control all alike : 

I. There is such a thing as truth. There is truth in science 
and there is fact in science. 

II. There is in the mind of man that which responds to 
the truth — that to which the truth appeals, and on which tlie 
truth is based in its action on the mind. 

III. To be received by the mind as truth, the idea or state- 
ment must be perceived by the mind to be a truth or a fact. 

IV. There is a distinction between truth and falsehood, 
and this distinction is based on the nature and necessary rela- 
tion of things. 

V. There is in man that which lesponds to this distinction 
between truth and falsehood. 

VI. A revelation from God will not contradict any truth, 
on any subject whatever, no matter how made known. 

VII. All truth being grounded in the nature and necessary 
relation of things, must be accordant and consistent. 

VIII. If a system or statement pretending to be a revela- 
tion from God should contradict any clearly established truth, 
man could not and should not receive it. 

IX. A revelation on the same line of subjects as truth al- 
ready known, will agree with and not contradict them. 

X. If a revelation speak on any subject, no discovery of 
science, or fact of science or truth of science subsequently 
brought to light will ever contradict it, if it be a revelation. 

XI. No pretended revelation can be true which contradicts 
any well established fact or truth of science. 

XII. While it may not be the object of revelation to re- 
veal science, and we should not expect a revelation on relig- 
ious topics to do so, and while it may use popular language 
and terms that are not scientifically correct, yet when it makes 



214 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

an explicit statement involving any fact or truth in science, 
it should be in accordance with established truths of science." 

XIII. Reason must be our ultimate standard in this matter, 
for reason has to determine whether God has ever spoken to 
man, and which of the pretended revelations are the true one, 
and then what has been spoken. 

XIV. By reason we do not mean the peculiar notions and 
ideas of each individual. Revelation may and must contra- 
dict all errors of a mistaken reason. 

XV. If the Scriptures are inspired, they are infallible and 
sacred, but no interpretation of them is infallible or- above 
criticism. 

XVI. Men have erred in interpreting the Scriptures, and 
have generally interpreted them to suit their own views and 
prejudices. There is no error, no matter how gross, or sin, no 
matter how vile, that has not • attempted to shield itself be- 
hind interpretations of the Scriptures, and claimed that it 
was above criticism, because it had taken such a refuge. 

XVII. The Scriptures have suffered more from such inter- 
pretations, than all other causes combined. Criticism, and 
even skeptical criticism, has done scriptural interpretation 
great service in pointing out such errors. Having conceded 
this much to the demands of reason, we lay down the follow- 
ing principles that should be accepted on the other side : 

I. Any scientific statement, or any conclusion or deduction 
in science, must be clearly proved and established, before 
any one can be required to accept it as a fact or truth. 

II. If an attempt be made to array any deduction or con- 
clusion of science against religion, it must be clearly shown 
that the premises on which the conclusion rests, are facts or 
truths, and, above all, that the conclusion logically and neces- 
sarily follows from the premises. 

II r. No one need spend one moment to defend religion or 
the Scriptures from attacks based on mere hypothesis. 

IV. While science in the true sense of the word might 
overturn what claims to be a revelation, mere hypothesis, as a 
basis for an attack on such revelation, is not worthy one mo- 
ment's notice. Then what are the claims of geology to con- 



FAILURES or EVOLUTION. 215 

sideration wlien wielded in attacks on the Scriptures ? We 
'reply that, in its present condition, geology is not worthy one 
moment's notice, from the -very simple fact that geology is not 
a science, and has not a single claim to the appellation 
science, and what is wielded against the Scriptures is mere 
hypothesis. This may startle some persons, and will doubt- 
less provoke the ridicule and sneers of others,, but what are the 
facts? What is science? Science is truth classified and sys- 
tematized by means of certain great truths or principles on 
which each truth and the whole truth of the system is based, 
and which express the relation of each truth to the system 
and to each other. To thus systematize and classify a series 
of correlated facts and truths, we must have certain great ra- 
tional conceptions that are our basis of classification, and are 
our guide in classification. The growth of each science has 
been thus. Men have observed phenomena, and have guessed 
at them, at their cause, and have gotten up hypothesis on 
which they have arranged the phenomena, as beads strung on 
a string. Soon, however, a phenomenon would be observed 
that would not string on the hypothesis, and the hypothesis 
would be thrown away, and another devised and substituted 
in its stead. Thus slowly and painfully often men toiled to- 
wards the great underlying principle — the great central idea 
of the phenomena, and when at last this was discovered, a 
science was possible, and not till then. When truth was 
reached, all the phenomena would crystallize around it into 
a system or science, because the basis of classification was 
reached, and the guide in classification was knoAvn. 

Before the discovery of this rational conception, this central 
idea "or underlying principle, the phenomena were merely 
placed in juxtaposition or mechanically mixed. Such is pre- 
cisely the condition of geology now. An immense mass of 
facts has been observed and recorded. The principal facts 
observed are superposition of rocks and earths — the rocks that 
a-re found in connection and the relative order of position, or 
the order of succession, it is claimed — the remains of species 
of animals and plants now extinct are found in these strata — 
certain remains are found in certain strata and not in others — 



216 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

great catastrophes have characterized the former history of 
our planet, and that it has undergone great changes, and that 
there has been a succession of types of existence, and a pro- 
gression in such succession. AH attempts that have been 
made to classify these phenomena and reduce them to a sys- 
tem, and all theories concerning their origin and age are mere 
guesses, mere hypotheses. They are called hypotheses by ge- 
ologists themselves, and it is just these hypotheses and deduc- 
tions based thereon, and especially tlie latter, that are wielded 
against the Scriptures. There is not one fact — one observed 
phenomenon of geology— that has the slightest conflict with 
any statement of the Scriptures. The conflict is between the 
guesses of geologists as to the cause of the phenomena, or 
tlieir age, or relative order of succession. There is not one 
geologic hypothesis now accepted that has stood the test of a 
score of years. There is not one geologic theory or hypothesis 
that may not be overturned to-morrow by the discovery of 
some phenomenon or fact now unknown. Over one hundred 
years ago the French Association of Science published a list 
of over eighty geologic hypotheses that had been accepted for 
a time and then exploded and abandoned. Over twenty 
years ago Lyell added fifty to the list, and as many have fol- 
lowed since that time. We can safely say that within the 
1 ist one hundred and fifty years over one hundred and fifty 
theories or speculations have been suggested as hypotheses in 
geology and exploded and abandoned. Many of these were 
the fundamental ideas of geology in their day, and were 
urged as established scientific truths, and most of them were 
arrayed against the Scriptures, and men were arrogantly 
called upon to cast to one side the faith of ages because it did 
not accord with these guesses that their advocates have since 
abandoned, and some of which they would blush to have at- 
tributed to them. These conflicting, changing, inconsistent 
speculations have each tried to act usurper in its ephemeral 
moment of existence, and then given place to some new pre- 
tender. Instead of learning modesty and sense from such 
failures and inconsistencies, the geologists have been capti- 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 217 

vated by each new chimera and have, if possible, become more 
dogmatic, arrogant and presuming. 

Prominent among these exploded theories are the nebular 
hypothesis, the plutonian hypothesis of the origin of some 
rocks, or that they are cooled, melted matter, the neptunian 
hypothesis of the origin of others, or that they were deposited 
by water, and most notably the theory that the center of the 
earth is a melted, fiery mass. We have already stated many 
of the objections that can be urged against the nebular hy- 
pothesis. When applied to account for the origin of the 
earth, it is open to many more insuperable objections. It is 
assumed that the matter of the earth was once a mass of su- 
perheated gaseous matter, so highly heated that all the mat- 
ter now aggregated in it was once an intensely heated vapor 
or gas. Ail the elementary substances were either mixed in 
a chaotic, turbulent mass, or were evolved out of it. Now, 
as a matter of fact, we have no experience of knowledge of' 
such a substance as an intensely heated nebulous vapor or 
gas, or of solids formed from such nebulous heated matter or 
gases. Gases come from solids in combination, or from com- 
pounds formed by chemical action, and arise from combustion 
or chemical action. There is no instance of gases spontane- 
ously condensing into solids, or uniting to form solids. If the 
elementary substances were once mechanically mixed, the 
present compounds formed out of them are inexplicable. 
These elementary substances did not unite into compounds 
according to greatest chemical affinity, as they must have 
done had they ever been mechanically mixed. Then, why 
was not chemical affinity active when matter was in this 
heated mixture? Why was it latent? Chemical action is 
produced and intensified by heat, in the case of many of these 
gases or elementary substances. As these elementary sub- 
stances cool at widely different temperatures, why did not 
those that cool first arrange themselves in masses? Why not 
those that became solid first gravitate toward the center? 
Why not all that are heaviest be near the center? How 
could substances that cool at widely different temperatures be 
mixed, as they are now, all through the crust of the globe? 
19 



218 THE PROBLExM OF PKOBLEMS. 

How could water enter into the structure of rocks that cool 
at a temperature that would convert it into super-heated 
steam? If heating the rock will expel the water in steam, 
long before the rock is melted, how could water be incorpo- 
rated into the rock when cooling? Water could not have en- 
tered into such rock when crystallizing from a heated mass; 
and as they are now cyrstallized, water is essential to tiieir 
present crystallization. If the earth ever were a heated mass 
of liquid, the sun would have caused, twice every twenty- 
four hours, tides at least sixteen feet high. The rocks never 
could have crystallized when they were thus constantly and 
violently disturbed, for crystallization requires profound calm. 
What are called metalliferous rocks, rocks that have metals 
mixed in their composition, are an enigma. Had the rocks 
been once melted, the metals that are heavier than they, and 
melt long before they do, would have been in masses by them- 
selves, and not mechanically mixed, as they are now. Melt 
the rock now, and the metals run off in masses, long before 
the rock is melted. Had the rocks been once melted, would 
not the metals have remained a liquid, and often a vapor, long 
after the rock became a solid in cooling ? How could arsenic 
and mercury, very volatile substances, be mixed with metals 
that do not melt until long after the mercury and arsenic have 
been converted into vapor ? Would not they have remained 
a vapor, long after the other metals had become solids ? Plat- 
inum i-s a rare metal. There are four other metals that ar.e 
very rare, and are found only in compounds with platinum. 
How came these rare metals to be mixed, especially since 
platinum melts only with intense heat, and these metals vapor- 
ize long before that point is reached? All these facts are in 
direct violation of every principle and fact of mixing and 
cooling melted matter. Another fundamental position of 
geology is that granitic rock is of igneous origin, or is the 
result of cooling melted matter. In direct contradiction of 
all this is the fact that graphite is found mixed in granitic 
rock, when graphite vaporizes long before granite melts. Had 
they been melted once, graphite could never have entered in 



FAILUEES OF EVOLUTION. 219 

mixture into granitic rock, for it would remain a vapor long 
after granite became a solid. 

Mica-schist is an ingredient in granite, and a granitic rock. 
Water-marks have been found in its structure, which never 
could have happened had it been a melted mass once. Ani- 
mal remains have been found in rocks that geology declares 
are of igneous origin. Had the rock ever been melted, these 
remains would have been destroyed long before the rock 
cooled. Granite is composed of three crystals that are 
unique, and melt at different temperatures, and are soluble 
under different circumstances. These crystals are always 
imbedded into each in the closest union, and yet distinct. 
This could not have been the case, had they been a melted 
mass once, for they melt at different temperatures. Granite 
can not be melted and retain its present structure, different 
portions run together at different temperatures. Melting gran- 
ite changes its specific gravity and structure, hence it never 
has been a melted mass. The specific gravity of granite is 
exactly that of quartz resulting from aqueous crystallization. 
Gustave Ros^ has manufactured feldspar, an ingredient of 
granite, by mixing lye and clay at 400°, a very low tempera- 
ture, and subjecting them to great pressure. Anstead has pro- 
duced granite out of stratified rock, which, according to geol- 
ogy, is an aqueous rock, and never produced immediately 
from melted matter ; thus showing that they are not radically 
and structurally different, as geology assumes, and that granite 
is the product of stratified rock, both of which contradict 
geology. The present indications are that granitic rock is the 
result of chemical action at a comparatively low temperature 
under great pressure. 

A pet position of geologists is that g.ranitic rock is the earlier 
formation, and stratified rock of more recent origin. Anstead's 
experiment shows that granitic rock is the product of strati- 
fied rock, and of the more recent origin. The argument 
based on the superposition of stratified rock above granitic 
rock is worthless, for immense masses of granitic rock are found 
above stratified rock. Another pet theory of geology is, that 
the center of the earth is a melted mass of superheated n«attcr 



220 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

in a gaseous form. Such is a necessary deduction from the 
premise, that all the earth was once a mass of nebulous 
vapor, that has since cooled off and solidified at the surface. 
We have already called attention to the fact that the sun 
would have caused tides, and have prevented a crust being 
formed, and also have prevented crystallization. The enor- 
mous expansive pressure of such a mass of superheated gase- 
ous matter is entirely overlooked. An engineer estimates 
that it would require a thickness of eight hundred miles of 
the best boiler iron to withstand the pressure of such a mass 
of superheated vapor. The crust of the earth would have to 
be so thick that there would be no melted center. A geologist 
suggested that the volcanoes would relieve the pressure. "So 
much the worse for geology," retorted the engineer, " for if 
the volcanoes reach this superheated gas or vapor, it would 
blow off through them, and leave the earth a hollow shell, as 
does a perforated boiler." Another scientist makes a calcula- 
tion, based on the increase of density resulting from pressure, 
as we pass towards the center, and reaches the conclusion that 
the center of the earth must be many times more dense and 
solid than the solidest steel. And thus these sciences that 
are so definite and certain, and so accordant, and so much 
more reliable than the Scriptures, agree. Then mud and fish 
are cast out by volcanoes. The matter that they cast out is 
not from such a mass as geology 23laces at the center of the 
earth. 

An eminent geologist, to relieve the difficulty, supposes that 
as particles cooled at the surface, gravity would attract them 
towards the center, and thus there would be two places where 
cooled matter would be aggregated, at the surface and at the 
center; and that there is a solid core at the center of the 
earth, with a melted mass around this core, and a cooled crust 
at the surface. In this he contradicts all experience and com- 
mon sense. We never see a melted mass cool anywhere ex- 
cept at the surface, and from the surfiice inward, and it 
remains melted at the center long after it is solid at the sur- 
face. Even if particles j^assed toward the center as they 
cooled oft' Ihe heat toward the center would melt them long 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 221 

before they reached it, and a cooled mass at the center would 
be melted by the surrounding hot mass. Then we have 
numerous and various theories of the cause of the elevation 
of mountain chains. One supposes that they are the result 
of the heaving of the heated center of the earth. Another 
supposes that the materials of the center of the earth once 
were loosely aggregated together, and by the settling of these 
loose masses intense cold was generated, which heaved up the 
surface, as we know great cold will. Another supposes that 
chemical action of water on metalloids generates heat, and 
causes volcanoes, and throws up mountain chains. And so 
these speculations go on, and these theorists agree in but one 
thing, and that is, that believers ought to abandon their faith, 
and accept their speculations that are as changeable and fleet- 
ing as the mists of the morning. The theories of geologists 
concerning the age and priority of rocks are mere guesses and 
speculations. So are their speculations concerning the age of 
animal remains and exuviae, vegetable debris, debris in caves, 
debris of lacustrine villages, debris and mounds of ashes, and 
remains of food, etc., found on shores of seas and rivers, 
where there were villages in former ages, and alluvial deposits. 
How does the geologist know how long it took to form a cer- 
tain stratum, or a succession of strata of rock, or any other 
deposit — a deposit of a given thickness — to harden a rock, or 
form an alluvial deposit ? How does he know that the re- 
mains that he finds in caves, or in alluvial deposits, or even 
in rock strata, are cotemporary, or succeed each other in the 
order of superposition ? In caves, debris of all ages might 
be commingled by flood, or the action of man or animals. 
The same holds true of alluvial deposits, where floods tear 
away and deposit together debris of several geologic ages. In 
the case of rocks, earthquakes and catastrophes mingle re- 
mains of various ages together. 

What is the rule of the geologist in making his calcula- 
tions based on the thicknesses of deposit and time of harden- 
ing? What is the rule or data used by the geologist in de- 
termining length of time? It is all guess and hypothesis, and 
so many contradictions to his hypotheses and failures of them 



222 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

have appeared, that they are worthless in attempting to de- 
termine the age of any particular deposit or remains. The 
blunders of geologists have been so many, that no reliance 
can be .placed in their calculations. Brydone clearly proved, 
so all geologists claimed, that certain remains of man were 
covered by deposits of lava at Mt. ^tna, in such a way as to 
show that they were at least eleven thousand years old. A 
later investigation proved that they were less than seven 
hundred years old. French geologists found deposits in 
Egypt that were at least thirty thousand years old, with rel- 
ics of man's work among them, and the world rang with the 
exultations of infidels. The next year Roman coin and pot- 
tery were found beneath them. The world has rung with the 
case of a skeleton found in an alluvial deposit near New Or- 
leans. It was at least fifty thousand years old. No matter 
how much river men urged that they had seen acres of de- 
posit thirty and forty feet thick, formed in four or five years, 
and different strata of timber, earth, and animal and vegeta- 
ble remains all formed in a few years — thus proving the utter 
unreliability of such data — the skeleton ivas at least fifty thou- 
sand years old, and the case is to-day a stock argument in in- 
fidel works ; although the gunwale of a Mississippi flat-boat 
has since been found in the same deposit lower down. A 
skeleton was found in Denise, in France, over which great ado 
was made, until an English clergyman clearly showed that it 
was a quarry man, of probably the Roman period, covered by 
a landslide. Skeletons of a man and woman were found in 
Guadaloupe, that geologists claimed must be at least one hun- 
dred thousand years old. Dana showed that they were skele- 
tons of Caribs, and probably not as old as the discovery of 
America. A skull was found at Los Angelos, California, by 
Prof. Whitney, of which much was said, until it leaked out 
that it was a practical joke or sell, practiced on the geologist 
by some miners, in revenge for his pronouncing their mine 
worthless, and ruining its sale. They wanted, they said, to 
show that his science was all guess work and a humbug, and 
they did. 

Great ado has been made over lacustrine villages of the 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 223 

lakes in Switzerland, and mounds of ashes and food found on 
the shores of Denmark and other places. They proved the 
great antiquity of man, and the truth of the speculations of 
the theory of historic development in regard to the stone 
age, bronze and iron ages. No attention was paid to the fact 
that history declared that such cities were there during his- 
toric periods, and that they exist now. They were of great 
age. Finally, remains of Roman utensils have been found 
among what they claimed to be the oldest remains, and that 
bubble was exploded. Schliermacher's excavations at Troy, 
prove that there a stone-using age succeeded an iron and 
bronze age, and that these various materials were used cotem- 
poraneously. Again and again have alluvium and deposits, 
in caves and other deposits, been cited as of great antiquity, 
when living men could prove them to be of recent origin. 
The writer has known rock formations and tracks of animals 
to be pronounced of untold age, when many living witnesses 
could prove that they had been formed within their own 
knowledge. Had he space he could give scores of such cases. 
A pet hobby of the geologist of the present day has been, that 
certain strata are azoic, or without evidence of life, or evi- 
dence of life during their formation. But life has been carried 
back step by step through these formations to the secondary 
formation, and the geologist now dare not say that any for- 
mation is azoic. Another hobby was, that simple forms of 
life alone appeared at first. This is contradicted by the facts. 
High orders of fishes appeared very early. Also orders of 
animals but little inferior to our vertebrata appeared bug ago,- 
and without any preceding types. The dying out of certain 
types, especially the simpler forms, is another hobby. Deep 
sea dredgings prove that enormous quantities of these types 
yet exist, just as they did in the earliest geologic ages. Suc- 
cession of types, of vegetables and animals, >vas another 
hobby. But in a forest bed in Cromer, in England, were 
found, in an alluvial deposit, eleven species of plants now ex- 
isting, and remains of several species of animals now existing 
were found commingled, and even beneath the remains of 
several species of animals that geology declares have long been 



224 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

extinct and existed several geologic ages anterior to this. 
This utterly disproves the geologic assumption concerning the 
antiquity of man, because his remains have been found in 
caves and other places, in connection with such remains. 
There are several cases like the one at Cromer, which over- 
turn the very fundamental theories of geology. That the 
earth was, during geologic ages, and for immense periods, 
very different from what it now is, is another pet theory of 
geology. The discovery of warm-blooded animals essentially 
like what we have now, and air-breathing animals essentially 
like what we have now, and of high orders of plants essen- 
tially like what we have now, proves that the earth must 
have been similar to what it is now throughout these geologic 
periods, and that some of the earliest must have been essen- 
tially in climate and other characteristics as it is now. These 
facts disprove the chronology and chronologic succession 
claimed by geology. 

Another theory of geology is that chalk must have been 
formed at an enormously remote period, and during an enor- 
mously long })Griod of time. Recent discoveries prove that it 
is being formed in immense masses now, and very rapidly. If 
what is forming now, and has been formed during the present 
generation, wei*e to be elevated along-side of what geology 
says was formed long ago, it would be compelled to give to 
them the same age. Such catastrophes as earthquakes, 
mingling as they do the remains of various geologic ages, chang- 
ing the order of position and succession, and the remains or 
strata that are in contact, destroy all possibility of putting abso- 
lute reliance on these data. Lyell admitted this when exam- 
ining the Natchez skull, and discarded it, because the earth- 
quake, 1811, had made such changes in that portion of the 
Mississippi Valley, and had mingled remains of the year 1811 
with earlier deposits, so that no reliance could be placed on 
remains found as it was. Such are the reasons why we say 
geology is not a science, and why we claim that at present 
we must pay no attention to the hypotheses of geology. The 
facts of geology do not contradict the statements of the 
Scriptures. Suppose the geologist finds any or all remains, 



FAILURES OF EVOLUTION. 225 

in any or all strata, what statement of the Bible is contra- 
dicted thereby. The conflict of the Scriptures is with the 
speculations of geologists on these deposits. All these spec- 
ulations are mere guesses, and have been contradicted by the 
facts of their own field of investigations, so that they are un- 
worthy of notice. The greatest living geologist has said that 
'^ Geology is like a man in mid-ocean, in a boat at midnight, 
without rudder and compass, and without a star visible." 
Until it finds its own moorings, we can safely afibrd to let it 
drift, and not mind the discordant shouts of its bewildered 
advocates. 



226 THE probli:m of problems. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

The Theistic Solution. 

Investigation, research, and thought have led every 
thoughtful mind to the axiom, that all human inquiry finally 
brings us face to face with ultimate truths, truths that can 
be resolved into no simple elements, and for which we can 
give no further reason that they exist. On these ultimate 
truths rest all reasoning, demonstration and inference. As 
we pass out from them in our explorations, we always end in 
the mysterious, the unknown, the infinite. All around the 
finite area of the known, lies the infinite unknown. The cir- 
cumscribed circle of human knowledge has all around it an 
infinite circumscribing area of the mysterious and unknown. 
As a person standing in the midst of a boundless plain finds 
that the unknown that lies beyond his horizon limits his view 
on all sides, so does man, in all his investigations in every 
field of thought, find that his explorations end in the un- 
known, and that inseparably connected with what he claims 
to know is an infinite border-land of the unknown. As the 
explorer, who ascends by toilsome effort the rugged steeps of 
a mountain, whose top is hidden and obscured in the clouds, 
finds, as he gazes around him, that he has enlarged the cir- 
cumscribing area of the unseen as rapidly as he has enlarged 
his liorizon, so the toiler up the steeps of human thought, only 
sees more clearly, as he ascends, how boundless is the mys- 
terious and unknown. This mystery arouses and excites our 
thought, and at hist baffles and limits it. But the mystery 
is not overpowering. It does not hinder our investigating 
and learning what is within our horizon. Nor does it forbid 
our thinking of and apprehending the infinite that lies be- 
yond, though we never can comprehend it. Man can ap- 
preliend certain infinite truths concerning the universe, and 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 227 

must do so to properly understand the finite and known. 
The mystery connected with them does not disprove the 
accuracy of such apprehensions. 

As the rivers that bounded the ancient Eden could be 
traced to one source, so can all truths of a science be traced 
back to one general truth; and all sciences can be traced 
back to one fountain of truth. In building up a science, 
men have first observed phenomena and their characteristics, 
and recorded them, and attempted to account for them by 
speculation and hypothesis. They arrange phenomena on 
the hypothesis as they string beads on a string. Soon a phe- 
nomenon is observed that will not accord with the hypothesis, 
and it has to be cast to one side, and another hypothesis 
substituted in its stead, and thus, by many efiforts, and by 
laborious research, and through many failures, man toils on- 
ward toward the great underlying principle of the phenomena, 
the great central truth, around which every phenomenon will 
crystallize into a system, and that will give order, beauty and 
harmony to seemingly disconnected, or even discordant phe- 
nomena. When this central truth, or underlying principle, is 
discovered, we have a science, and not till then. This great 
principle is always an universal truth, expressing the relation 
of the parts of the system to each other, or of the parts to 
the whole system, or of the system to other systems, or all 
of these relations. All sciences are systems of phenomena 
and truths, classified by fundamental, ideal conceptions, or 
great ideas of reason, expressing the relation of the parts of 
the system to each other, or of the parts to the whole system, 
or of the system to other systems, or all of these relations. 
This tendency of the mind to classify the phenomena of the 
universe by means of ideal conceptions, and to search for the 
idea of reason that will classify them, is not, as physicists 
claim, an infirmity of thought, but one of the grandest and 
highest efforts of reason, to ascertain the fundamental idea 
of reason realized in the phenomena, and which expresses 
this fundamental principle and reason. Without this con- 
trolling catholic tendency of the mind, man would never 
attempt to investigate phenomena, would attempt the con- 



228 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

struction of no science : and the proper investigation of phe- 
nomena, and the construction of science, would be utterly 
impossible. So \Yould all rational investigation of phenom- 
ena, and all construction of science be an impossibility, if 
there be no great ideas of reason, realized in the universe, and 
pervading the universe, as controlling and regulative princi- 
ples. Newton, Harvey and Copernicus have been immortal- 
ized for the discovery of such great truths in different depart- 
ments of thought. 

As we pass from our solar system, with the sun for its 
center, to other similar systems, we apprehend that these 
have a relation to each other, and to a vast central orb, and, 
perhaps, this vast system is related to others equally vast, 
until we are lost in the immensity of the infinite. As it has 
been with each science, so it is Avith the circle of sciences in 
their relation to each other. ]Men have been trying to dis- 
cover the great central science, the great underlying principle 
of all science, the great truth that is related to all truth, as 
Byron says of virtue: "Stands like the sun, and all which 
roll around drink life and light and glory from her aspect." 
It is the glory of modern science that it has conceived the 
idea that all the seemingly antagonistic displays of physical 
force, observed in the phenomena of nature, can be resolved 
into one, exhibited under various modifications. Displays of 
force, that were once regarded as manifestations of entirely 
distinct, and even antagonistic, forces, are now conceived to 
be but difierent manifestations of the one force, and they can 
be resolved into each other. So it has been conceived that 
all sciences are but difierent evolutions of one great central 
principle or truth. As we pass from planet to planet and to 
the central sun, so we can pass from truth to truth and to 
the central truth in each science. And as men have passed 
from system to system, to a vast central orb, so has human 
thought tried to reach the central idea of all science. The 
conception is a sublime one, and an evidence of the divine 
image stamped on the human hitellect, that has thus tried to 
think the thoughts of infinite reason. Two answers to this 
problem of problems are now striving lor ascendancy in the 



THE THEisTic solutio:n. 229 

great field of research and thought. The devotee of physical 
science would lead us up to matter and force, blind, insensate 
matter and blind, irrational force, as the ultimate of all re- 
search, the ap3c?) of all being. Keligion and its cognate de- 
partments of thought would lead us up to Infinite Mind, 
Infinite Spirit as the cause of all things, the beginning, source 
and origin of all being. 

The question then is, "Shall theology, in the broadest and 
truest sense of that noble word, or shall physical science, be 
the science of sciences, the central science, the fountain from 
whence all truth and science flows?" Questions concerning 
the nature and origin of life, the ground and origin of being, 
the nature and origin of force, the problem of substance, of 
being, of cause, of the absolute, the infinite, the uncaused, 
the unconditioned, are each and all but different ways of pre- 
senting this problem of problems: "What is the ultimate 
principle, the ground, the apz/), of all being?" In their 
answers to this question men may be divided into : 

I. Antitheists. — Those who deny the existence of an in- 
telligent, absolute, first cause, asserting either: 1st. That 
the present order of things is eternal. 2d. Or that all is 
merely a fortuituous concourse of atoms and phenomena, or 
the result of such concourse. 3d. That, although all is in 
accordance with order and law now, originally all was the re- 
sult of a fortuituous concourse of atoms or phenomena. 4th. 
All is controlled by blind, resistless fate, or relentless necessity. 
5th. Or that the universe is the result of an indefinite course 
of atheistic development, in accordance with certain self-exist- 
ent and eternal principles inherent and eternal, in self-existent 
and eternal matter and force. 

II. Atheists. — Those who merely have no god, denying 
that man knows or can know any thing of the absolute cause. 
These might be called theoretic atheists. Then there are prac- 
tical atheists, or those who merely ignore the existence of God 
in their lives and their thoughts, those who attempt to ac- 
count for all that exists without recognizing his existence or 
exercise of power, those who divorce God from all connection 
with the universe, those who nominally recoi>-nize his existence 



230 THE PROBLEJVr OF PROBLEMS. 

or creatixe action, and yet divorce him from all connection 
with what they pretend to regard as his works. Any system 
that denies or ignores God's immediate and personal action 
and energy, in creation, government and providence, is athe- 
istic. Much of modern science and thought is atheistic in 
tendency and result. It leads the mind up to the tremendous 
forces of nature, up to matter and force, and leaves it face 
to face with them, and never leads from nature up to nature's 
God. 

III. Pantheists. — Those who regard God as an irrational 
principle or a combination of irrational principles pervading 
the universe. Those who regard God as the World Soul 
bound up in, and subject to, the eternal and necessary laws of 
the universe, attaining his highest and only intelligent mani- 
festation in man. Such a system is really atheistic. Much 
of modern poetry and speculation is pantheistic. 

IV. Theists. — Or those who believe in an intelligent, ab- 
solute, first cause of a'll that exists, who created, sustains and 
governs all things, and is self-existent, uncaused, uncondi- 
tioned and absolute. Such are the four great classes into 
which men may be divided. We might divide them into but 
two — atheists and theists. Atheists make matter and force the 
ground and beginning of all being, without the creating, or- 
iginating and directive control of intelligence. Theists make 
intelligence, mind, reason, the source of all being. > Pantheists 
are really atheists, for their World Soul is bound up in and 
subject to matter, and really nothing more than the force of 
the atheist, and intelligence is evolved out of matter and 
force, and by matter and force, as much in that system as in 
atheism. Such is the problem, and such are some of the 
answers human thought has given to it. 

Perhaps, before we enter on the direct discussion of the 
question, a good preparation for it would be to clear away 
certain rubbish in our way, by inquiring how man came by 
the idea of God, or an intelligent first cause. Error here 
will often pervert or weaken an entire line of argument. 
Some claim that without revelation men would never have 
had any idea of God or of his attributes. Such was the po- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 231 

sition of the late Alexander Campbell. He based his position 
on the sensational, materialistic philosophy of Locke. He 
claimed that man has, and can have, no knowledge or idea, 
except such as comes through one of the five senses. As 
neither God nor any of his attributes are objects of sense, man 
can obtain such ideas only through direct revelation. Such a 
position, while attempting to elevate revelation, is reall}/ one 
of those suicidal arguments that destroy the cause they are 
expected to sustain. It concedes that religion and the idea 
of God are foreign to reason and human nature, and that 
reason can not sustain them. It assumes that man has no 
religious nature ; for if he has, it certainly will have its out- 
croppings in religious ideas. It makes revelation create or 
implant within man his religious "and moral nature. It de- 
stroys the immortality of the spirit and all proof of God and 
immortality. It is opposed to a correct mental philosophy. 
It destroys all human responsibility and accountability. It 
contradicts the Scriptures. If the reader will read the nine- 
teenth Psalm, and the first and second chapters of Romans, 
especially the twentieth verse of the first chapter, he will see 
that this position is clearly contradicted by David and Paul. 
Some claim that man can, by his ow^n unaided efforts, at- 
tain to as complete an idea of God as his reason can grasp. 
But as the child can be taught what he can not attain by his 
unaided efforts, so can the mightiest intellect that the world 
has ever known receive and grasp ideas above its capacity to 
discover if imparted to it by a higher intelligence. As man 
learns by comparison, induction and deduction, and as he is 
imperfect and impure himself, he can not attain to a correct 
idea of God's moral attributes by his own unaided efforts ; for 
he can not evolve the idea of absolute holiness out of his own 
nature, or that of his fellow-men. If he could attain to such 
a conception, he can not determine in what it consists. Man 
has never emancipated himself from idolatry, except by and 
through revelation. His intuitions, his aspirations and his 
history prove his need of revelation. The true position is 
that man is constitutionally a religious and a worshiping be- 
ing, and has a religious element in his nature. This religious 



232 THE PROBLEM OP PROBLEMS. 

nature will have its expression in his life, and man ever has 
an idea of a God and of his natural attributes, but such an 
idea would be imperfect. This would be especially the case 
with the moral attributes of God. As these are the very at- 
tributes of God that man must know, for on a knowledge of 
these depends his elevation by worship and religion, God must 
reveal his real character in full for man's adoration and imita- 
tion. As to how the idea of God originated in tlie human 
mind, different opinions have also been entertained. Some 
contend that it is innate or connate, meaning that man is born 
with it. The notion that man has any such ideas is now 
abandoned. Some contend that it is an immediate or unde- 
rived intuition. It is not; for men do not appeal to it as such, 
but regard it as susceptible of proof, whereas all immediate 
underived intuitions are not susceptible of proof, they are self- 
evident. We simply know them to be true, and that they 
can not be otherwise than as they are, and true. Some regard 
it as a tradition from primitive revelation. It is, doubtless, 
in many cases, but can not be so in all cases ; for men have 
the idea who have no such traditions. Again, it is only such 
ideas as man would have had anyhow that have been thus 
preserved, or can be thus preserved, through all the vicissi- 
tudes through which such an idea would have to pass. Then 
such an assumption is assuming the very question at issue. The 
proof must be adduced that all men have obtained the idea 
from revelation, and this, the very point at issue, must not 
be assumed. 

Some attempt to answer the question by saying man always 
has had the idea. Still the question arises, how did the first 
man obtain the idea ? I believe that he obtained it by rev- 
elation, or was not left to reach it by the action of his mind. 
But that all men that have since lived liave received the idea 
by tradition from this revelation, is a point to be proved and 
not assumed. The atheist says by imagination. Men obtain 
simple unc:)mpoundod basis ideas only by consciousness, sen- 
sation, intuition and revelation. Imagination can not originate 
a simple unconiponnded basis or primitive idea. The idea of 
the being or existence of God is n simple uncompounded 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 233 

primitive or basis idea, just as the idea of the existence of 
human spirit is such an idea. The idea of each of the attri- 
butes of God, is a simple uncompounded primitive or basis 
idea, just as the idea of each attribute of the human spirit is 
such an idea. Imagination can not originate either of them. 
It may play fantastic tricks in its combinations of the attri- 
butes of God, but the simple idea of his existence, or the 
simple idea of each of his attributes, imagination can not 
originate. They must come through one of these four sources : 
consciousness, sensation, intuition or revelation. Imaginatiou 
can only combine what it receives through these sources; 
hence the simple idea of the existence of God, or of each of 
his attributes, must have come through one of these sources. 
The true position is, that the idea of God is a catholic affirm- 
ation of universal reason based on phenomena furuished by 
sensation and the characteristics of the phenomena, and also 
on intuitions of reason concerning the phenomena and their 
characteristics ; or on data furnished by the senses, and intui- 
tions of reason concerning these data. If we use the term intui- 
tion to cover all these catholic or universal ideas that man 
every-where and of necessity reaches by a proper exercise of 
his reason, it is such an intuition; but it is not an immediate 
or direct intuition, for it is not self-evident. It is a universal 
or catholic intuition of all reason ; for man every-where has it 
and can not divest himself of it. Man is constitutionally a 
worshiping being, and can not divest himself of this inherent 
tendency. Even the atheist will, in spite of himself, show 
the presence of this tendency and intuition. Comte's deifica- 
tion of reason, and French atheistic systems of worship, and 
the tendency of atheists to run into Spiritism, of which the 
Owens and Prof. Hare are notable examples, seen also in a 
multitude of other cases, show that this intuition or impulse 
can not be eradicated. 

With these preliminary remarks, we propose, as a solution 
of the problem of being, the following thesis : There is an 
Infinite Eternal Self-existent Intelligent First Cause of all that 
exists, an Intelligent Absolute Cause, or a God who created 
and who governs and sustains all things, and who is infinite 
20 



234 THE PEOBLEM OP PROBLEMS. 

in his perfections and attributes. No question can be so im- 
portant as whether this be true, for it is the fundamental 
question in all knowledge and truth. Is blind, irrational 
matter and force the ground of all being, or is mind ? If we 
establish the first position, there can be no divine government, 
no accountability, no responsibility to such government, no 
reward or punishment, no revelation, no providence, no pray- 
er, no atonement, no pardon of sin, no worship, no religion, 
no right, no wrong, no moral desert, no responsibility, no mo- 
I'ality ; for these things can not be evolved out of mere mat- 
ter and force. If we establish our thesis, these things are a 
possibility, a probability, a reality, a necessity. If Ave estab- 
lish the first, we have no law or government, except matter, 
force and necessity. If we establish the second, we have a 
government of reason and intelligence. Then the entire ques- 
tion of law, government, morality, responsibility, duty, ri-ght 
and wrong, hinges on this question. Our ideas of the dignity 
and value of human nature, its origin, its relative value and 
importance, its destiny, our aspirations, and our conceptions 
of the basis of law, government, duty, and right and wrong 
and morality, are determined by our views concerning this 
question. So also are our ideas of prayer, providence, wor- 
ship and religion. 

In our investigation, we shall be guided at every step by the 
great principle of inductive philosophy: "Examine carefully 
and fully the existences and phenomena in question, and from 
their characteristics determine their cause." The common 
sense of all mankind has ever recognized two spheres of ex- 
istence and phenomena — the material or physical, and the 
spiritual or mental. Before we reject either, or make it mere- 
ly a difierent manifestation of the other, or subject it to the 
same laws and rules of investigation and interpretation as the 
other, we must, by a careful investigation of the two supposed 
spheres, and a careful induction of phenomena and their 
characteristics, prove that we are justified in doing so. 

We can not assume the physical sphere to be the only one, 
for mind has to investigate it, and determine its existences and 
phenomena, and their characteristics. Human reason is 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 23^ 

the agent or actor in all investigation, and its catholic intui- 
tions must be our standard. We can not use human reason 
as our agent to do a certain Avork, that we have in our pre- 
judices decided to be all that it should do, and cast to one 
side its catholic intuitions, or use it as a means in its own 
destruction. Not only so, but in our investigation of nature, 
we must take all nature into our field of investigation. Man's 
nature, the highest element in nature, and his moral and re- 
ligious nature, the noblest element in his nature, and the 
catholic intuitions of his moral and religious nature, the reg- 
nant and regulative principles of his nature, must not be 
overlooked, ignored, or denied. The physicist begins with the 
lowest part of nature, and as he meets with the higher, he 
interprets it by the lower, and drags it down and merges it 
into the lower. He does not recognize the differences and 
liigher characteristics as he meets them, but he ignores them 
or explains them away, and. tlius reduces all nature to a 
level with the lowest part of nature. The true course is to 
begin with the higher, and make it our means of investigation 
and comparison, and our standard and measure. As we find 
in our passage downward, that a higher characteristic disap- 
pears, let us recognize such fiicts, and keep these differentiae 
between the higher and lower ever in view. We must, then, 
take all the phenomena of nature into our field of investiga- 
tion, and especially its highest and noblest element, man's 
mental, moral, and religous nature. Reason is the agent in 
the investigation, and its catholic intuitions our standard. 
We must have an accurate conception of reason and its cath- 
olic intuitions, its fundamental ideas and regulative truths and 
principles. If these are rejected, all reasoning is at an end, 
and all attempts at reasoning a folly and a mad farce. In- 
stead of groping in the mire and clay of matter and force 
with the muck-rake of observation, uncontrolled and unillu- 
minated by the pure light of the great ideas of reason, let us 
rise to what the physicist acknowledges to be the highest 
product of evolution, and the noblest expression of the law 
of evolution, man's rational nature, and examine the image 
of God in our own nature, the human spirit, and let in on 



236 THE PKOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

the phenomena of nature the full light of reason. Let us 
clear the microcosm, man's spirit, of all obscurities that a blind 
materialism has heaped upon it, lift it out of the muck of 
matter into which he has dragged it, and then we can rise to 
an apprehension of the Macrocosm, the Infinite Creator. How 
can a man have any conception of tlie universe, wiio views 
it only through matter, and rejects all the light of the light 
of the world, mind ? If we extinguish this light within us, 
how great is the darkness! Such, then, shall be our field of 
observation, and such our agent and means of observation 
and investigation, and such our standard of authority. 

The lines of argument that have been pursued in demon- 
strating the existence of God are manifold, and often sadly 
confused. Perhaps we can not better begin our work than 
by arranging and classifying them : 

I. Ontological. — This attempts to prove the objective 
reality of the existence of God, by the subjective notions of 
the human reason. It assumes the validity and reliability of 
our reason, and that every intuitive, subjective notion of rea- 
son has its counterpart in objective reality. It is presented 
in several forms : 1. It is assumed that the idea of God is 
so fixed in the human mind, that it can not be eradicated; 
and as our nature is veracious and not a cheat, the objective 
reality must exist as the counterpart to the subjective no- 
tion. Anselmus' proof from the most perfect being comes 
under this head. God is a being than whom we conceive 
of none greater or more perfect. But real existence is greater 
than mere thought, for the cause must be greater than its effect, 
hence the existence of God is guaranteed by our conception, 
or the contradiction of a being more perfect than the most 
perfect being would emerge. Descartes gives another elabora- 
tion of the same thought. Necessary existence is essential to 
the idea of all-perfect being. We have the idea of all-perfect 
being. Hence the all-perfect being must exist. He further 
says that the less perfect can not evolve the most perfect, for 
an effect can not be greater than its cause. We have the 
idea of an all-perfect being, hence he must exist to give rise 
to the idea, as the substance must necessarily exist to give 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 237 

rise to the shadow. 2. Space and time are the necessary at- 
tributes of substance, and mind is assumed as the necessary 
substance in which they inhere. 

II. CosMOLOGiCAL. — God's existence is established by the 
principle of causality: 1. The necessary is the essential an- 
tithesis of the contingent. In the necessary alone do we find 
sufficient ground for the existence of the contingent, for the 
contingent is not self-existent nor of itself self-sustaining. 
2. Something now exists, therefore something must have al- 
ways existed, for "Ex nihilo nihil fit" — out of nothing, comes 
nothing. 3. We exist. We did not cause ourselves. 
Some adequate cause for our existence must exist. To make 
this a valid tlieistic argument, it must be established that 
mind or intelligence is the necessary antithesis of the existing 
contingent, or that the something that must have always ex- 
isted, must be an intelligence, or that the cause of what now 
exists must have been an intelligence. This can be done only 
by the next line of argument. 

III. Teleological. — This passes from ends accomplished 
in creation back to an intelligent cause: 1., We start from 
man's work caused, as we know, by intelligence, and pass 
back through nature to an intelligent cause. Or we start 
from nature's works and pass down to man's works, and find- 
ing the same characteristics pervading them, as we know 
man's work had an intelligent cause, we throw nature's works 
back on an intelligent cause. 2. We find law and order in 
the phenomena and types of the existences of the universe — 
a law and order pervading the whole universe, and including 
every phenomenon and existence in it — we find co-ordination, 
adjustment, and adaptation of existences ,to each other, and 
of means to ends in nature, which have their necessary ground 
in mind. 3. Animals, such as the bee, act in accordance 
with the most profound rational ideas. Such an act must 
have its ground in reason. It is not in the bee. It must be 
back of the bee, in its Creator, who has given to it an instinct, 
impelling it to obey this law. 4. The most profound scien- 
tific truths and laws are wrought out in the organization of 
animals, such as the electric eel, the poison of certain animals, 



238 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

etc. These results have their necessary ground in mind. 5. 
The highest and most abstract conceptions of reason are 
realized in nature, and nature can be construed only in ac- 
cordance with them, and by them. Nature must have been 
constructed by reason, and reason must have realized these 
ideas in constructing nature. 

IV. Ethical. — This proves the existence of God as a 
moral lawgiver, ruler, judge, and executive in two ways: 1. 
Conscience gives us ideas of good and evil, sin and righteous- 
ness, moral desert, and rewards and punishments. All these 
have their necessary ground in mind, as lawgiver, ruler, 
judge, and executive. 2. The disorder of the moral uni- 
verse. This throws us forward into another state of existence, 
when this confusion will be righted by a Judge and Execu- 
tive. 

V. Intuitional. — 1. Man has intuitions of the iuiiuito, 
infinite space, infinite duration, infinite power, infinite cause, 
infinite intelligence, infinite intelligent being, infinite intelli- 
gent absolute cause. 2. Man has an intuition of his depend- 
ence, of his need of an independent existence on whicli to 
rest. 3. In the poet and all spiritual-minded persons, there 
are intuitions of an Infinite World Soul, or an Intelligent Ab- 
solute Cause. 4. The intuition of worship. Man is a wor- 
shiping being. This can be caused only by an intuition of 
an object of worship. Human reason has ever affirmed that 
there is a God. All geography and history of all ages, and 
all ethnology, demonstrate this. Man has ever searched after, 
and claimed revelation from God. All these facts demon- 
strate that the existence of God is an intuition of human 
reason. The testimony of tradition, history, archaeology, 
philology, and revelation are all valuable as corroborative 
proof. 

We regard the intuitional as the basis of aU other argu- 
ments, and as the fundamental and most valuable proof. It 
must furnish the basis of all our reasonings. The other lines 
of argument can be established and made valid only by the 
intuitional method, by an appeal to its intuitions, and resting 
them on them. They are chiefly valuable as furnishing col- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 239 

lateral proof, and illustrating the intuitional method. We 
can. find a basis for them, and repair defects in them, and 
give them validity only by an appeal to the intuitional method. 
Justice, however, to the teleological method demands that 
we say that it furnishes to the intuitional method the occa- 
sion to evolve its intuitions, especially its intuitions of intelli- 
gence, in the phenomena, and in the cause of the phenomena. 
The intuitional method rests on the teleological for all its 
intuitions of intelligence in the first cause. As we have 
taken as our standard the catholic ideas of human reason, we 
will have to define, elaborate and defend these somewhat care- 
fully and fully. As preliminary to, and as a foundation for 
our line of argument, we lay down the following truths. No 
system, can be based on sensation alone, or on the contents of 
sensation entirely. The mind has intuitions above and be- 
yond the contents of sensation, on which it builds all systems, 
by which it constructs them, and by which it regulates its 
reasonings, and tests them. Nor can a system be built en- 
tirely on revelation, for man learns by comparison and deduc- 
tion, and there must be in the mind a basis for comparison, 
on which revelation is based, and to which it appeals. Nor on 
imagination alone, for that is a constructive faculty, which 
merely uses the materials it obtains from other sources. Nor 
on sensation and demonstration combined, for demonstration 
builds on and by means of regulative principles and truths, 
and sensation reveals only phenomena and not regulative 
truths. 

There are in the mind at birth certain constitutional powers 
or faculties wdiich develop with the grow^th of the mind, in 
accordance with certain innate inherent laws of the mind. 
When the senses appealing to the mind, and exciting it to 
action, and placing before it existences and phenomena, fur- 
nish the occasion, the mind, in accordance with the constitu- 
tional laws of the mind, and the necessary nature of its 
thinking, has conceptions above and beyond the contents of 
sensation. These are known as axioms, self-evident truths or 
intuitions. They are fundamental or basis ideas. They are 
the basis on which all reasoning and demonstration and also 



240 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

revelation must rest, and to which they must appeal. With- 
out them, sensation would produce no more reasoning in man 
than in brutes, for they have all the exercise of the senses 
that he has, and even more acutely often. Nor would reve- 
lation produce any more effect on him than on the brutes. 
Sensation and these intuitions furnish the materials used by 
the constructive faculty — the imagination. The contents of 
sensation furnish to the mind the occasion to evolve these 
ideas, but the contents of sensation are not the ideas. We 
see the parts, we see the whole, but we do not see that the 
sum of the parts is equal to the whole. We see two straight 
lines, and we see the space between them, but we do not see 
that two straight lines can not enclose a space. These truths 
are affirmations of reason, above and beyond what is held in 
sensation. Sensation furnishes to the mind the occasion to 
evolve the ideas, but it does not furnish the ideas. 
Fundamental or basis ideas are : 

I. Truths revealed in consciousness. I am conscious that 
I exist, and of the exercise of my faculties. No one of tlie 
senses gives me this knowledge. 

II. Phenomena revealed in sensation. 

III. Intuitions of reason. 

IV. Revealed truths. 

On these rest demonstrative truths or ideas, analogical 
truths or ideas, and inferential truths or ideas. As this is the 
fundamental work of our demonstration, we will elaborate 
more fully in another form. There is innate power or capac- 
ity, or there are inherent constitutional faculties of the mind. 
These faculties have regulative laws, inherent properties, and 
regulative principles. The mind has, by means of these con- 
stitutional faculties and inherent regulative principles, certain 
original conceptions, fundamental ideas or intuitions. In 
consequence of these constitutional faculties and inherent 
regulative principles, the mind must discover eternal truth, 
necessary truths, such as two straight lines can not enclose a 
space, every effect must have a cause. Indeed, we can accu- 
mulate the data of experience only by means of these con- 
stitutional faculties, regulative principles and intuitions. If 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 241 

it were not for the^^e, phenomena would chase each other 
across the field of sensation, as images appear and disappear 
in a mirror. All reasoning is based on original convictions, 
and all original convictions are intuitions. Objects, through 
sensation, furnish the occasion to the mind, and excite it to 
action, revealing to it phenomena and their characteristics, 
and then the mind has original convictions, above and beyond 
what is held in sensation. We have the contents of sensa- 
tion, then original, individual convictions, and then universal 
maxims. Sometimes the latter are the result of one observa- 
tion, and sometimes the result of a number of observations. 
As the mind apprehends a truth expressing a relation of the 
parts to each other, or to the whole system, or of the system 
to other systems, it recognizes a regulative truth, and accepts 
it as such, whether it be an induction from one observation or 
from several observations. All intuitions from one observation 
are immediate spontaneous intuitions. Those from a number 
of observations are generalized convictions or catholic ideas. 

The tests of intuitions are : They are self-evident — they are 
necessarily true, or can not be otherwise than as they are, and 
true — they are catholic ideas, or all men have them from a 
proper exercise of their reason — they express a relation of 
the parts of a system to each other, or to the whole system, 
or of the system to other systems. The term intuition, in 
our reasonings, is used to represent : 

I. Constitutional, universal, regulative tendencies of the mind. 

II. Original convictions in consciousness, arising from im- 
mediate perception of objects, and they are original and nec- 
essary, in consequence of the nature of things and the inher- 
ent tendencies of the mind. 

III. Catholic ideas, or truths coming from observation and 
generalization, that are fundamental in their nature, and ex- 
press fundamental truths. 

In appealing to ideas as intuitions, we have to decide: 1. 
Are they intuitions — are they self-evident — are they neces- 
sary — are they universal — do they express a relation? 2. 
Are they correctly expressed ? 3. What is a proper use of 
them, a legitimate application of them? If the first two 
21 



242 THE PROBLEM OF PROBFiEMS. 

questions are answered in the affirmative, we must implicitly 
accept and follow them, or all reasoning is at an end. To 
reason at all, we must accept and act on the veracity and 
validity of our reason, in its intuitions, and accept these intui- 
tions as the foundation of all reasoning, the guide in all rea- 
soning, and the standard by which all reasoning must be 
tested. This is true of all men, atheist and theist alike. If 
our reason, in its intuitions, be untrue -or unreliable, there 
can be no foundation for reasoning, no guide in reasoning, no 
test of reasoning, and all reasoning is an utter impossibility. 
One might as well attempt to erect a temple on the mirage 
of the desert, as to reason under such circumstances. We 
repudiate the materialism which denies all intuitions of rea- 
son, and the idealism which deixies the objective reality of 
every thing exterior to the mind. 

Some of the fundamental primordial intuitions of reason, 
which can not be questioned, and back of which we can not 
go, are the following: There is a Me, and there is a Not- 
Me. There is a perceiving Self, and there is a Perceived- 
by-Self. These are distinct and different, and can not be 
confounded in our thinking, or the reality of either questioned 
in our reasoning. There is body or matter, and there is mind 
or spirit. Body or matter has objective and independent being 
— that is, it is not dependent on observation for existence — 
and it has external and extended reality; and there is in body 
or matter potency affecting mind or self, and causing it to be 
perceived by mind or self. We cognize or intuit in body or 
matter these essential properties : Extension, size, situation, fig- 
ure, density, rarity, impenetrability, mobility and inertia. We 
cognize or intuit the existence of force, affecting matter, and 
force in bodies, affecting other bodies. We cognize or intuit by 
consciousness an existing, independent, abiding, potential self, as 
different from matter in which it resides or our bodies, and as 
distinct from the organs which it uses, and which reveal matter 
and our bodies and themselves to self. We intuitively know and 
feel that the knowing mind is different and distinct from our 
bodies known by it, and in which it resides, and which it uses, 
or matter known by it, or the organs or functions of our bodies 



I 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 243 

which it uses, and which reveal matter and our bodies and them- 
selves to the knowing mind. We intuitively know that mind 
has faculties or the characteristics of consciousness, volition, 
emotion, thought and reason, or moral, rational, thinking, 
responsible personal attributes. We intuitively know that 
matter has not these attributes, but that it has other and 
different characteristics, w^hich reveal it to spirit, which alone 
has these attributes. We assign personality to mind, but never 
to matter. We intuitively know that force belongs to matter 
or body, and faculty to mind. We intuitively know, also, 
that the force which we see in matter — the force that we con- 
trol and use by our minds — the force that we cognize in our 
bodies, acting independent of our minds, or in opposition to 
our minds, or in obedience to them, is not our mind or the 
same force as our mind. We intuitively recognize a differ- 
ence between physical force, seen in insensate matter, and 
vital force, sensation, and rational or mental force or power. 
We can not resolve mind into matter, or matter into mind, 
or mind into physical force modified by organization of mat- 
ter, no matter what our theories may be. We intuitively 
make these distinctions, even while denying them and at- 
tempting to disprove them. Had we space we could give 
hundreds of such instances from the writings of materialists. 
We intuitively know inertia to be a law or property of 
matter. The law of motion proves this. Matter can not 
change its state. If in rest, it would never move itself. If 
in motion, it would never stop itself. Spontaneity belongs to 
mind alone, and inertia to matter. Spontaneity is an inher- 
ent property of mind that we recognize in all its acts. Spon- 
taneity has no connection with matter. We also intuitively 
make a distinction between agent and patient, or between 
what possesses spontaneity or what acts, and what is inert, or 
is acted upon. We intuitively make mind alone active or 
the agent. When w^e have a clear conception of matter, we 
know that it is not active, but passive. It is never primarily 
an agent or actor, but the recipient or acted upon, or used as 
the instrument of the agent or actor. I know this is most 
strenuously denied by materialists, but no one can accept the 



244 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

fLindamental law of motion, that matter can not set itself in 
motion, and when in motion can not stop itself, and deny the 
position, that matter is inert and destitute of all spontaneity, 
and not agent or actor. Mind and matter, then, are differ- 
ent in every particular. Inductive philosophy, then, does not 
establish the identity of mind and matter, or that mind is a 
function of matter, for matter never produced mind, has none 
of its attributes, and never produced one of its phenomena. 
The properties we ascribe to matter, and the phenomena we 
assign to it, and the attributes we ascribe to mind, and the 
acts we ascribe to it, are totally different, and have not one 
feature in common. The materialist himself would, except in 
defending his philosophy, scout the idea of ascribing what we 
ascribe to one of these, to the other. We can not resolve 
mind into matter, or matter into mind, or confound them in 
our thinking, no matter what our theories may be. We intu- 
itively and necessarily make these distinctions, even while de- 
nying them and attempting to disprove them. This can be 
proved by taking the argument of any materialist attempting 
to disprove these assertions. 

The great effort of materialism, at the present time, is to 
eliminate the idea of spirit and God out of the universe, by 
means of the new doctrine of correlation or equivalence of 
forces. All forces, as they are called, are but different mani- 
festations of one force, pervading the universe, and they can 
be resolved into each other, and pass into each other. Some 
extend this equivalence only to physical forces, and except 
life, sensation, instinct, reason, mind and spirit from this cor- 
relation. But most materialists include all force — vital, sen- 
tient, mental, moral and spiritual. I have even read an ex- 
pression, in which a popular materialistic declaimer expressed 
his admiration of the wonderful chemistry which changes a 
cabbage into a divine tragedy of Hamlet. Could madness 
go further? But we deny that this correlation of physical 
forces includes, or can be made to include, vital, mental and 
spiritual forces. In our intuitions we recognize a difference 
between force, as displayed in inorganic matter, and force as 
displayed in organic matter. We recognize spontaneity in 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 245 

sentient, rational force, and none in force destitute of sensa- 
tion and reason or mind. The materialist can evade this only 
by denying all spontaneity in mind or mental force, or in any 
force or person or thing. Yet he acts spontaneously in his 
arguments, his choice of them, and the words he uses, and he 
recognizes spontaneity in those he addresses, or he would not 
attempt the argument. He attempts nothing of the kind on 
a tree, or even on an animal, but he does on man, recognizing 
spontaneity, alternativity, volition, responsibility, and moral 
action in himself and others, even while attempting to dis- 
prove it. No principle of inductive philosophy has ever de- 
clared that physical force and mental force are equivalent, or 
can be resolved into each other. On the contrary, it declares 
that neither matter, nor any collection of matter, can, by 
chemical action or any other means, change physical force 
into vital or mental force. Nature declares that they are 
different in every characteristic. In its theories of molecular 
action of the brain — brain secretion of thought, chemical ac- 
tion, vibration of medullary particles, etc., materialism over- 
looks the fact that in spontaneous thought and mental action, 
there must be a spontaneous self-acting, intelligent cause, 
distinct from all these processes, to originate the processes, 
and that there must be an intelligent principle, distinct and 
separate from them, to take cognizance of them. He con- 
founds the agent with his acts, the agent with his tools. He 
overlooks the fact that there is a spontaneous, self-acting prin- 
ciple or agent, that, by means of memory, imagination and 
thought, can arouse all these processes independent of any 
exterior or known material cause, or any action of physical 
forces. Just as causes, ab eodra, rouse these processes, and are 
real substantive agents, so there is a spontaneous, self-acting, 
substantive agent, ab intra. As the former is a real sub- 
stantive agent, distinct from sense and brain that it impresses, 
so must the latter be a real substantive agent, separate and 
distinct from brain and senses that it uses. Materialism over- 
looks these fundamental distinctions. 

This doctrine of correlation of forces violates every princi- 
ple of inductive philosophy. Its advocates very properly 



246 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

take the phenomena of matter, destitute of life, and the phe- 
nomena of physical forces, and reason from them to their 
causes, but they refuse to take the unique phenomena of life, 
sensation, and reason, dissimilar and distinct in every particu- 
lar, and to reason from their peculiar characteristics to their 
peculiar cause. It either assumes the similarity of the phe- 
nomena and their characteristics, in violation of every sense 
and all reason; or, in violation of all correct reasoning, it 
applies results reached in physical phenomena to radically 
dissimilar phenomena. It is a violation of all sense to affirm 
that the force that burns in the blaze is the same as that 
which produced a Paradise Lost. The argument adduced to 
sustain the position does not do so. Are these forces the 
same and resolvable into each other^ or do they merely neu- 
tralize each other in their influence on matter? or does one 
unfit matter to be used by the other? Excessive physical 
toil unfits one for mental efibrt, and excessive mental effort 
unfits one for labor. Are they therefore equivalents, or does 
one merely exhaust the physical organism, and render it unfit 
to be used by the other ? They are not equivalent, for mod- 
erate mental effort is aided by moderate labor, and one en- 
joys moderate labor after moderate mental effort. Excessive 
mental effort unfits one for the exercise of the sexual passion, 
and excessive exercise of the sexual passion unfits one for 
mental effort. Are they, therefore, but different manifesta- 
tions of the one force ? Who will utter so gross a thought ? 
Does not each merely exhaust the physical organism, and 
unfit it to be used by the other. Then the mind is intensely 
active in each case. So there is no resolution of mere physi- 
cal force into mind, or mind into mere physical force, or any 
approximation to it. There is an attempt to cover up, under 
a play of words or a phrase, things radically dissimilar, and 
to substitute or use a new phrase as an explanation. Has all 
this talk of correlation and equivalence of forces a syllable 
of explanation in it of what uses the physical organism, and 
directs the displays of force in each case? Correlation of 
forces and forces are modes of motion. Heat is a mode of 
motion. Motion of what? Modes of motion of what? 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 247 

What have we but a phrase to evade the issue, and hide the 
difficulty, and blind the eye of reason, and cheat the judg- 
ment, while the idea of mind and spirit is stolen away. 

Sensation may be traced to certain nerves, and mental ac- 
tion to the brain ; and it may be shown that the mind, while 
in the body, is always manifested through the brain, and that 
certain mental processes can be traced to certain portions of 
the brain, but that is no explanation of thought. It does 
not tell us what it is that thought, or what thought is, or 
what mind is. It merely reveals the tools, and not the work- 
man. Suppose the brain secretes thought as the stomach se- 
cretes chyle, what uses the brain in such process, and what 
takes cognizance of such act ? Then this new phrase, ''corre- 
lation of forces," does not drag mind down to a level with the 
force that rustles the leaf. It does not bind infinite mind in 
its chain of modes of blind forces. It violates every principle 
of inductive philosophy, and every principle of common 
sense, when it attempts such a monstrous absurdity. Then we 
repudiate, as a very travesty of all reasoning, the debasing 
rhapsody that talks of the wonderful chemistry that changes 
a cabbage into a divine tragedy of Hamlet. 

Among other primitive beliefs are space, infinite space ; 
duration, infinite duration, or eternity ; existence or being, in- 
finite existence or being. The materialist will accept all these. 
He will accept the infinite in space and time, and the abso- 
lute and unconditioned in being, in matter and force ; for he 
says they are self-existent, eternal, independent and self-sus- 
taining. We affirm on the same ground, as necessary primi- 
tive beliefs, mind, infinite mind, good and evil, right and 
wrong, moral desert, retribution, divine government, respon- 
sibility, accountability, and retribution here and hereafter, 
and a future existence. Mathematical axioms and postulates 
are necessary beliefs, and so are the fundamental ideas of all 
departments of science. All science and knowledge is built 
on them — builded up by means of their regulative guidance and 
control, and tested by them. The most important primary be- 
lief in all reasoning, in every department of thought, and one 
that lies at the basis of all reasoning, and that regulates and 



248 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

controls all reasoning, is the intuition of causation — that certain 
things are causes, and others are effects. All men, from the 
lowest intellect up to the wisest sage, from the lowest savage to 
the most cultivated intellect on earth, recognize that certain 
things are causes, and that others are effects. The intuition 
of cause and effect is more than a recognition of invariable as- 
sociation and succession, or a generalization of our experiences 
of such association and succession. We recognize ho relation 
of cause and effect in the invariable association and succession 
of day and night. We do not think of saying that one causes 
the other. We recognize causation in the conjunction of moon 
and tide. Certain things may be associated for ever, and an 
infinite number of times, and we would never think of there 
being between them the relations of cause and effect. Mill 
asks why it is that such is the case. Why, in some instances, 
do we have intuitions from one observation, and, in others, an 
infinite number will not give any such idea or assurance to 
the mind ? Or if the mind chance to be deluded into such 
belief, it may the next moment find it is mistaken. The an- 
swer, we think, has been given by Dr. Bledsoe. In the latter 
case the mind observes but the accidents or properties of indi- 
vidual existences, and it either knows that no generalized 
conclusion can be based on things so changeable and fleeting, 
or, if it does make such a generalization, it learns its mistake. 
In the other case we observe a necessary relation between the 
parts and the Avhole, or the parts of the system, or between 
the system and other systems. We know we have a general 
truth, a universal idea, a regulative principle, inherent in the 
nature of thino-s, and that it can not change. In the iiitui- 
tion of causation, we cognize a necessary relation between the 
powers of what we call the cause and that which we call an 
effect, that brings the latter out of non-being into being. We 
cognize a potency in the properties of the cause, that is a poAV- 
er bringing the effect out of non-being into being. In the case 
of mere invariable association, we see no such relation between 
the properties or powers of one and the other, or operating 
in the properties of one that would bring the other out of non- 
being into being. In every case when we recognize cause 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 249 

and effect, we see such relation, such connection. We do not 
place a middle between cause and effect, and we need none. 
We intuit an immediate relation or connection, a potency in 
the cause that brings the effect from non-being into being. 
This intuition is not a generalization of experience, for we 
have the idea often, from a single observation, and the infant 
has it as one of his first intuitions, long before it can generalize. 

We have the idea of cause from our consciousness of an 
energizing will, which is power in action, controlling second 
causes, our faculties and organs, producing effects, the entire 
variety of our conduct and acts internal and external. Then 
the intuition of causation arises in our consciousness as a 
primitive belief, that can no more be eradicated than the 
consciousness that reveals it. The infant, as almost the first 
act of reason, recognizes causation in himself, and that he 
produces certain effects. He sees other effects and he attri- 
butes them to causes ; and so clearly does his idea of causa- 
tion come from his consciousness of his own will, that he at- 
tributes volition and personality to all causes, and makes 
intelligences of every thing, and is angered or pleased with 
every thing as a person. 

Experience enlarges, corrects and confirms this intuition, 
but does not give it by means of generalization. All reason- 
ing, all science, and all progress are based on this intuition. 
Men who deny it, rely on and use it in their reasoning to dis- 
prove it, for they use and rely on their reasoning as a cause 
to produce an effect, a change in the convictions of their 
hearers. If they say they merely bring forth the antecedent 
of such a consequent, then they afiirm that they are the cause 
that brings forth the antecedent, and they would not do so, 
unless they intuited a potency in the antecedent to bring into 
being the effect. Mill attempts to evade the issue by saying 
that the idea of causation is of such a character, that by gen- 
eralized experience, when we see one of them, the antecedent, 
we always expect the other, the consequent, to appear; or 
when we see the consequent, we always believe that the ante- 
cedent has preceded it. In the first place, we would never 
have such an expectation, unless we cognize a relation between 



250 TfTE PROBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

the properties of the antecedent and the consequent, that 
gives to the antecedent a potency to bring the consequent 
from non-being into being. Again, it is not a generalization, 
for we have it before we can generahze ; and we have it, from 
one observation, often. And we may see things associated 
together forever, and not have any idea of such connection 
between them, and if one failed to appear in connection with 
the other, we would never think of a failure of the law of 
cause and effect. Any reasoning that does not recognize this 
relation between the properties of the cause as a potency, 
and the effect as a product, by means of which the former 
brings the latter out of non-being into being, is totally falla- 
cious, and all reasoning not based on such idea is false. The 
animal sees only time-succession, and he never reasons or 
progresses. Man recognizes causation, he reasons and pro- 
gresses, by using causes to produce desired effects. 

The reasoning of Hume was defective, and did not, as his 
admirers claim, prove that our ideas of cause and effect are 
merely a generahzed conclusion based on invariable succession 
and association in our minds, so that when we see the one we 
always expect the other, and this generalized conclusion was 
the result of accumulated experiences. We repeat, we might 
see certain things associated forever, and an infinite number 
of times, and never think of connecting them as cause and 
effect. Again, in other cases a single observation is sufficient 
to produce the conviction, and nothing can eradicate it. We 
see a relation between the properties of what we call the cause 
as powers, possessing a potency, and the effect that brings the 
effect out of non-being into being. Hume did the cause of 
theism a signal service. He showed, in his illustration of the 
two billiard balls, that one was not the efficient cause of the 
motion of the other, for they might lie on the table together 
forever and there would be no motion. Nor was the cue the 
efficient cause. Nor was the arm that held the cue more than 
an instrumental cause. Hume stopped too soon. Had he 
passed back to the mind, to the energizing will that controlled 
the arm and directed the cue, he would have found a sponta- 
neous, self-acting energizing power, power in action, causing 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 251 

the entire series of phenomena. Hume did a great service to 
theism. He showed that there is no real causation, no spon- 
taneous, self-acting power or energy in matter. Matter is 
never an efficient cause, but only an instrumental or second 
cause. Matter is never a spontaneous, self-acting original 
cause. Nor is physical force ever a spontaneous, self-acting 
original cause. It is never more than an instrumental or 
second cause. Let us remove some erroneous conceptions that 
cluster around this subject. Matter is essentially and neces- 
sarily passive and inert. The first law of motion demon- 
strates and declares this. Hence, it can not be an agent or ac- 
tor, or an efficient cause, or a cause in the sense of a sponta- 
neous, self acting cause, and the original cause. It can never 
be more than the instrumental cause, and the original, the 
efficient, the spontaneous, self-acting cause must be back of 
matter and distinct from it, using it as its instrument. Phys- 
ical force is not an original efficient cause, for it is not spon- 
taneous and self-acting or self-directing. Motion is not a 
force, although it is almost invariably spoken of as one. Mo- 
tion is merely a change of situation by matter in which it is 
passive and acted on by force. Force is an exercise of power 
by an actor, or agent, or efficient cause. Force and matter 
may be used by an actor or agent as second or instrumental 
causes, but the efficient cause, the agent or actor, or original 
cause, is mind or will power in action, acting to produce a 
purposed result. When we speak of matter and physical 
force as causes, it is only as instrumental or second causes. 
We affirm that mind is the only agent or actor or efficient 
cause in the universe. It is the only self-acting, spontaneous 
original cause in the universe. All else is secondary or in- 
strumental causation, either immediately or mediately by 
means of implanted power implanted by mind. Mind alone 
acts. Matter is acted upon. Mind acts and exercises power. 
Such exercise of power is called force, and force causes the 
motion of matter, and the effects we see in matter, or the uni- 
verse. 

Then what we call force in matter and physical force or 
forces, is power implanted in matter by mind. The co-or- 



252 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

dination, adjustment and adaptation of force, shows that it 
was implanted by mind, and is regulated and controlled by 
mind in its effects. Then motion and action are not the same. 
Motion is a passive change of situation by matter, caused by 
force, which is an exercise of power by an agent. Action is a 
spontaneous exercise of power by an agent or mind. Power 
is inherent in mind alone. We say results in nature are pro- 
duced by physical causes or forces, in an accommodated sense 
only. These forces are exercises of power. Power is inherent 
in mind alone. An agent or mind implanted these powers, 
that we call forces or causes, and co-ordinated and controls 
them. Force, then, is an exercise of power by an agent, and 
never, in the true sense of the term, an agent. It only acts 
as an instrumental or second cause, and is a cause only in the 
same sense. Causes, in the true sense of the term, original 
causes, do not, themselves, have- causes, and are not effects. 
Causes may have occasions that impel them to act, or condi- 
tions under which they can or will act, but the agent or 
efficient cause, the real cause, is the actor, the spontaneous, 
self-acting agent. Motion is not a cause, but an effect. Eeal 
cause is never an effect. Motion is not action, nor an exercise 
of power or force by a cause. Motion of body and acts of 
mind are not the same, although materialists confound them. 
Bodies move when influenced by force, which is an act of an 
agent or an exercise of power by an agent. Mind acts, and 
does not move. Its acts produce motion in bodies. Then all 
effects in the universe are either immediately the results of 
the exercise of power by an agent or acts of mind ; or mediately 
through matter and force as second or instrumental causes — 
mediately through property or force implanted in matter, or 
property implanted in force by mind. Then our idea of 
causation is derived from our consciousness of our minds or 
wills as energizing power, or power in action, producing 
effects. All causation, either mediately or immediately, in- 
heres in an agent or actor, or spontaneous, self-acting agent or 
mind. We ascribe spontaneity, self-activity and self-regulation 
and control to mind and mind alone. Hence, all sponta- 
neity, self-activity and efficient causation has its ground in 






THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. ' 253 

mind. We are not necessitated to run through an endless 
chain of causes and effects, for reason declares that there must 
be that which was not an effect, that which had no cause, 
but is the ground and source of all causation. The atheist 
admits this when he assumes the eternity of matter and 
force, and assumes that they are uncaused and the source of 
all being. Our reasoning has stripped matter and force of all 
causation, of all spontaneity, self-activity and self-regulation, 
such as must inhere in efficient and original causation. It 
has made them effects and the instruments of mind. It has 
placed all efficient causation in mind. The uncaused, the 
cause of causes, must be absolute mind. 

We have, also, these intuitions, co-ordination, arrangement, 
adjustment, adaptation, in a system or method, exhibiting 
plan, design and purpose, with prevision of, and provision 
for, subsequent phenomena, controlled by law, exhibiting and 
realizing the highest conceptions of reason, can not be 
evolved by matter and force, can not come from matter and 
force, are not in matter and force. They are not the prop- 
erties or products of blind, insensate matter and force, can 
not be evolved out of them. We intuitively recognize them 
as attributes or acts of mind, and mind alone; and throw 
them back on mind as their only conceivable ground. We 
have intuitions of moral qualities in persons and the acts of 
persons, and only in persons and the acts of persons. We 
have intuitions of good and evil, righteousness and sin. 
There ideas impose obligation. They look to a higher power 
than man, to which the obligation is due. The idea is intu- 
itive that our actions are rewardable. We have the intuition 
that we enjoy blessings as rewards, and suffer evil as pun- 
ishment. We feel that these rewards and punishments come 
from a higher poAver. We have intuitions that the world is 
controlled according to these principles. These ideas refer to 
a mind to which we are responsible as law^giver, ruler, judge 
and executive. 

Before leaving this preliminary work, we remark, in con- 
clusion of it, 'that we no more affirm that a man is born with 
intuitive ideas than we affirm that he is born walking, talk- 



254 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ing, or eating, or thinking. We affirm that he is born with 
powers that, when developed, will enable him to do the phys- 
ical part of walking, talking, or eating, but the muscles need 
development and training. The power is there and the fac- 
ulties and principles that control the power are there, but 
they must be aroused, developed and applied. So the mind 
has certain constitutional powers and faculties, and inherent 
regulative principles, that control these powers and faculties, 
and lead them to certain results. The senses furnish the oc- 
casions that excite -the faculties of the mind to action. In 
accordance with these regulative principles and its own inher- 
ent constitutional nature, the mind has certain original con- 
victions. Is compelled to have them by the laws of its own 
thinking, and to act in accordance with them. These concep- 
tions are intuitions, self-evident, necessary, catholic or uni- 
versal, and express the relations and the nature of things. 
These original convictions are self, and not self — mind and 
matter — mind and its rational, moral attributes, matter and 
its physical properties. Mind alone is spontaneous, self-active, 
efficient cause. Matter and physical force are not spontane- 
ous, self-active, efficient causes. They are merely instru- 
mental or secondary causes. For matter is inert and passive, 
and force has no spontaneity or self-direction. We have ideas 
of space, time, causation and infinity ; and of infinite space, 
time and causation, and of dependence and contingency. We 
have rational ideas of order, law, co-ordination, adjustment, 
design, plan, system, method, prevision and provision. AVe 
have intuitions of right and wrong, and of moral qualities in 
persons and acts of persons. We have intuitions of responsi- 
bility, obligation and retribution. We do not obtain these 
ideas from physical nature, but with them furnished in con- 
sciousness, by our reason, we recognize the application of them 
in the physical world. We are conscious that our mind is 
one conscious thinking, willing, moral, responsible unit or 
self. That our mind has attributes or powers and faculties, 
and is not an organism with organs or parts. There is har- 
mony of attributes and powers, and not order and arrange- 
ment of parts or organs. 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 255 

Then our knowledge is based on sensation, consciousness, 
intuition and revelation. Using all these sources of knowl- 
edge, and basing our argument on the above intuitive ideas, 
we shall now proceed to our argument, and endeavor to es- 
tablish our thesis — ''The beginning of all being, the ground 
of all causation and condition and being, is an absolute, intel- 
ligent cause, or self-existent, eternal mind or spirit." The 
causes that impel man to a course of reasoning that would lead 
to the idea of God, are: 1st. A sense of dependence. 2d. 
The idea of causation and the recognition of causation in na- 
ture. 3d. An apprehension of the infinite. These impel men 
to begin, and prosecute inquiries concerning the cause of all 
things. We postulate the following axioms or self-evident 
truths : • 

I. Order, arrangement, co-ordination, adjustment and adap- 
tation imply design, purpose, system, method, law and plan. 
No rational mind can deny this. 

II. Design, purpose, method, law and plan imply a design- 
ing, planning mind, that has designed and planned the order, 
method and system for some purpose or end. No rational 
mind can deny this. 

III. A regular and invariable recurrence of the same phe- 
nomena, in the same sequence and connection in time, space 
and relations, implies order, law, system, method and plan. 
No rational mind can deny this. 

IV. The idea of causation is a fundamental intuition of all 
reason. Reason intuitively pronounces certain things causes 
and others effects. Any phenomenon brought out of non-being 
into being by something else is an effect. A cause is that 
which brings something else out of non-being into being. 
Man intuitively sees a relation between the properties and 
powers of certain things, and other things, that give to the 
first a potency to bring the second out of non-being into being. 
He sees more than invariable succession and connection. He 
sees a potency in one that brings the other into being. It is 
not a generalization of accumulated experiences, for man has 
the intuition before he can generalize, and generally after one 
observation. 



25G THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

V. A regular and invariable connection between a thing or 
a system of things in precedence, and a phenomenon or system 
of phenomena in sequence, demonstrates cause and effect, 
when we see a connection between the properties and prin- 
ciples of the first to bring the second into being — a potency 
in the first to produce the second as a result. 

VI. Like causes produce like effects, and like effects must 
flow from like causes. Hence, every effect must have had an 
adequate cause. An effect implying intelligence must have 
had an adequate cause, an intelligent cause.- 

VII. In all our investigations and reasonings, we pass from 
the understood and known to the borders of the inexplicable 
and unknown. We can and do apprehend the existence of 
things, and know that they exist, when we do not compre- 
hend how and why they exist, nor understand how they can 
be as they are, nor why they are as they are. We are con- 
scious that there is a connection between body and mind; 
and yet we do not understand how they are connected as they 
are, nor why they are thus connected. 

VIII. In all our reasonings, we pass from a knowledge of 
the finite to an apprehension of the infinite. From finite 
portions of space, through a relative infinity of space, we rise 
to an apprehension of absolute infinite space. From a relative 
infinity of duration, we rise to an apprehension of absolute 
infinite duration or eternity. From a relative infinity of mi- 
crocosms, we rise to an apprehension of the macrocosm or 
universe. From a relative infinity of causes, related as a har- 
monious system, we rise to an apprehension of the Absolute 
Cause, and the Uncaused. From a relative infinity of the con- 
tingent, connected in a system, we rise to an apprehension of 
the Necessary, as their only conceivable ground. From a 
relative infinity of the conditioning and the conditioned, re- 
lated as a system, we rise to an appreliension of the uncon- 
ditioned, the condition of all being. From a relative infinity 
of finite beings, related in an order perva'ling the universe, 
we rise to an apprehension of the Absolute Being, the ground 
and summation of all being. From a relative infinity of 
finite displays of force, co-ordinated as a harmonious system, 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 257 

we rise to an apprehension of Infinite Force or Omnipotence. 
From a relative infinity of finite displays of intelligence, 
united into a system realizing the highest conceptions of rea- 
son, we rise to an apprehension of Absolute Intelligence, or 
God. We simply afi[irm that we have these apprehensions 
of the infinite in each field of investigation and thought. The 
undeniable fact that every dialect on earth has terms ex- 
pressing these apprehensions, and that man has always had 
terms expressing them, demonstrates that he has the appre- 
hensions. We do not now assume that these apprehensions 
are all valid, and that the objective reality corresponds with 
the subjective notion, though if our nature be reliable, and a 
valid basis for reasoning, and a valid instrument of reasoning, 
and if reasoning be at all possible, these apprehensions are 
valid and true. So, also, since the atheist as well as the theist, 
and as implicitly as the theist, accepts the verity of our ap- 
prehensions of infinite space, infinite time, and infinite being 
in matter and force, and that they are necessary and uncon- 
ditioned, we might put him to the proof to show why we 
shall not accept the equally universal apprehension of infinite 
intelligence. The reader will observe and be careful to re- 
member that we say apprehend, and not comprehend. We 
must not confound perception with perfect knowledge, or ap- 
prehension with comprehension. We do apprehend the ex- 
istence and characteristics of things that we do not compre- 
hend. When we assert that we can not apprehend the 
infinite, we do apprehend the infinite and some of its charac- 
teristics in our affirmation itself 

We see all about us properties, attributes and qualities, the 
predicates of subject. We can compare them and classify 
them, and generalize and learn the nature of subject. We 
see protension, movement and succession — events transpiring 
in time, and having a beginning, succession, order and ar- 
rangement, expressive of power, regulated power, which throws 
these characteristics back on the power that produced them. 
We see things having a relation to each other — co-ordinated 
Rnd having a relative unity, which suggests absolute unity. 
We see things conditioned in time, space and causation, which 
22 



258 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

suggest the unconditioned, the ground and summation of all 
condition. Man is conscious that he is one conscious, think- 
ing, wilhng, planning, moral, responsible self. He is con- 
scious that there is in him an energizing will, which is power 
in action controlled by intelligence. That there is in himself 
intelligent causation, producing order, co-ordination, adjust- 
ment and adaptation, into a system or method, exhibiting de- 
sign, purpose and plan, with prevision of future results, and 
provision for their production, and for them in accordance 
with law of reason, and realizing the conceptions of his rea- 
son. He is conscious that there is this intelligent causation 
in himself, in addition to and above matter and force, and 
controlling and usuig matter and force for his own purposes 
and ends. The following facts are found in nature, are 
found pervading the entire universe, which have their neces- 
sary ground in mind, and have a necessary relation to reason 
and thought as their source: Numerical and geometrical re- 
lation and proportion ; the definite relation and proportion 
of the elementary substances in chemical action; symmet- 
rical and geometrical relation and ari-angement of parts in 
crystallization and exact geometrical form in crystallization; 
the numerical and geometrical relation of the forces, orbits, 
forms, motions, masses, distances and densities of the heavenly 
bodies and their orbits, all of which have an exact mathe- 
matical proportion and expression, realizing some of the most 
exalted and profound truths of this most abstrtict of all de- 
partments of pure thought. These realizations of the most 
exalted conceptions of reason have a necessary ground in 
mind, and a necessary relation to absolute reason and thought, 
as their only conceivable ground. The arrangement, co-ordi- 
nation, adjustment and adaptation of all forces in the universe 
as to when, how long, how often, in what order and succession, 
and where and with what power they shall act, imply order, 
system, method, design, plan and law. The uniform succes- 
sion of new existences, and the progressive evolution of new 
forms out of previous types, implies design, plan, law and 
system. The evolution of new species conformable to fixed 
and definite ideal archetypes, great ideal archetypes as con- 



THE THEISTIO SOLUTION. 259 

trolling ideas, indicates a comprehensive plan, law, order, 
method, adjustment and design. All these have their neces- 
sary ground in absolute reason and thought. The adaptation 
of organs to fulfill special functions necessitates adjustment, 
design and plan. Diversified homologous organs made to 
fulfill analogous functions, widely different organs fulfilling 
the same functions, and the same organs fulfilling widely dif- 
ferent functions, yet maintaining a general plan, necessitates 
foreknowledge, alternativity, choice, plan, purpose, with pre- 
vision of, and provision for, certain ends. These have a nec- 
essary ground in reason. These highest ideas of reason are 
realized in the smallest atom and each and every atom — each 
organ, each function, each organization, each species, each 
order, each planet, each system^ and, in the universe, the In- 
finite Cosmos. They have their necessary and only conceiv- 
able ground in reason and thought. 

We have also these ideas in the universe which have a 
necessary relation to moral ends and ideas, and can be ground- 
ed only in personality or mind. The universal tendency to 
discriminate between acts as voluntary and involuntary, and 
to further discriminate between the latter as right and wrong, 
indicates a relation to an immutable standard of Eight. The 
universal sense or consciousness of obligation and dependence 
indicates some relation to -supreme power or absolute author- 
ity. The universal consciousness of responsibility and ac- 
countability for actions, and that we endure the consequences 
of our conduct a& a reward or punishment, indicates a rela- 
tion to a supreme judge. The happiness that we intuitively 
recognize as a result of good conduct, and the evil resulting 
from evil conduct in this life, and the universal expectation 
and conviction that it will be so in a future state, indicates a 
relation to a Supreme Executive. The integrity and verity of 
our nature must be denied, and all reasoning rendered impos- 
sible, if we deny or repudiate these catholic ideas of universal 
reason. They are the highest and greatest realities of the uni- 
verse, and basis ideas, acting as motive powers, urging us on in 
our theistic researches and reasonings, and leading us to reason 
and thought as the ground of all being. Our general proposition 



260 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

then is, that man intuitively reasons that every effect must 
have had an adequate cause. As a catholic affirjnation of 
universal reason, based on universal intuitions of reason, aris- 
ing from the phenomena and the characteristics of phenomena 
revealed in sensation, man concludes that the universe is an 
effect, and an effect that must have had an intelligent cause. 
Or it is an affirmation of universal reason that the Absolute 
Cause, the Ground of all Being, must be Absolute Mind. 

To this course of argument the following objections are 
urged : 

I. It is denied that man would prosecute a course of rea- 
soning on cause and effect in Nature. 

II. It is urged that it is unscientific and futile for him to 
do so. 

III. It is denied that he would conclude that the Universe 
is an effect, or that he could prove it to be such. 

IV. It is denied that he would reach Intelligent Cause. It 
is urged that man can reach only matter and phenomena, or 
matter and force in nature, hence he would conclude that the 
cause of all was a physical cause, and he ^ever would rise to 
an apprehension of an Intelligent Cause, or any cause but a 
physical cause. 

V. It is denied that he ever would rise to an apprehension 
of an Absolute Cause. He would run through an endless se- 
ries of causes and effects, and never could or would rise to an 
apprehension of a First Cause. 

VI. It is urged that he might rise to an apprehension of 
an Artificer, Ruler and Judge, but not to an idea of a Cre- 
ator. 

VII. It is urged that man would have an idea of the eter- 
nity of matter and force, as well as mind, and only have an 
idea of a finite Artificer, Ruler and Judge. Such was Mr. 
Mill's position. 

VIII. It is urged that the argument has more in the con- 
clusion than there is in the premises. The premises are fin- 
ite, but the conclusion is infinite, hence the argument is not 
legitimate. 

IX. It is objected that when we expand our conception to 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 261 

infinity, it breaks down and becomes worthless, for it passes 
beyond our grasp. 

X. It is urged that since the First Cause is infinite, and our 
greatest efifect finite, we can not bridge the chasm between the 
greatest effect and our Cause. We can neither lift our great- 
est eflfect to our Cause, nor bring down our Cause to our great- 
est effect. 

XI. It is urged that we can not have any knowledge, even 
an apprehension of the infinite ; hence when we make the first 
Cause infinite we relegate it to the domain of the unknowable 
and unthinkable. 

XII. Finally it is objected that we anthropomorphize God, 
make him in our own image, and finite him, and make him 
imperfect. If we attempt to avoid this, and expand our con- 
ception, and strip it of eiTors, it becomes valueless, for it pas- 
ses beyond our grasp. It passes into the dominion of the un- 
thinkable and unknowable. In either case we destroy the 
conception of God, either by finitiug Him or by making him 
unknowable. 

To the first objection, we reply that man has an intuition 
of causation, which he uses in all his actions. As a matter 
of fact he has always prosecuted such researches and reason- 
ings. To the second we reply that a more caricatured travesty 
on science was never conceived than the positivist concep- 
tion of science. — Learn how and when phenomena transpire in 
time-succession, and be content therewith ! It ignores the fun- 
damental intuition and idea of all science, the intuition of caus- 
ation. All science is based on and built up by means of this 
idea of causation. The positivist's conception strips phenom- 
ena of all connection of rational ideas, and they fall to pieces 
in our hands. It serves nature as Medea did her brother Asbyr- 
tis; and all attempts to unite the disjecta membra, the isolated 
phenomena, are as futile as the attempts of the father to put 
together the fragments of his slaughtered child. So far from 
inquiry into causes being futile and unscientific, it is the ani- 
mating principle of all true science ; and all the glorious results 
of science are the results of such inquiry. To the third ob- 
jection we reply that man has ever regarded the universe as 



262 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

an effect — at least its present constitution. The evolutionist 
and atheist regard the present constitution of things as the 
effect of development or evolution. It can be demonstrated 
to be an effect. A regular and invariable connection between 
things or a system of things, and phenomena or a system of 
phenomena, implies cause and effect, when there exists a nec- 
essary and obvious relation and connection between the prin- 
ciples and properties of the things, as powers, and the phe- 
nomena — giving to the former a potency to bring the latter 
into being. The universe is a regular and invariable connec- 
tion and relation between things and systems of things, and 
phenomena and systems of phenomena, in which there is a 
necessary and obvious connection between the forces and prop- 
erties of things and the phenomena, giving a potency to these 
forces and powers to bring the phenomena into being as ef- 
fects. Therefore the universe is a system of causes and ef- 
iects. The macrocosm is a unity of matter and its forces, or 
a unity of systems of matter and forces, producing co-ordina- 
ted and correlated phenomena, or co-ordinated systems of 
phenomena, or a unity of phenomena. A unity or system of 
matter and force, producing a unity or system of phenomena, 
or one effect, gives us one cause producing one effect. Hence 
in the Cosmos we have but one cause, producing but one ef- 
fect. There are but two ways of evading this. One is to 
deny all causation. This is so palpable an abdication of rea- 
son, that we need not notice it further. The other is to de- 
ny the unity of the forces and the phenomena. The general- 
izations of the physicist himself shall be our answer to this. 
He, in his generalizations, makes the forces a co-ordinated 
system or unity, and of the phenomena a co-ordinated system 
or unity. 

Here the materialist stops. He assumes the eternity of 
matter and force, and that they are the ground of all being 
and phenomena. He contends that when we have reached 
matter and force, we have reached the ground and origin of 
all being. There are two queries to be answered before we 
accept his position. Is the materialist justified in excluding 
Intelligence or Mind from the ground and origin of all being? 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 263 

Are Ave not justified, nay, compelled to rise from matter and 
force to Mind or Intelligence, anterior to matter and force, and 
make it the ground of all being ? 

The materialist overlooks the highest and most important 
cause in the domain of nature, in fact the only efficient cause 
in nature, man's mind or energizing will and volition in action. 
We are conscious that we have in ourselves reason, intelli- 
gence, thought, design, contrivance, adaptation, adjustment, 
order, system, law, and plan, or that our mind is an intelligent 
cause, producing these results in our action, and that they 
can be produced by us only on account of our intelligence, 
free will, and volition. These ideas of law, order, and plan 
are borrowed by the materialist from the domain of mind. 
They arise from man's consciousness of moral order and obliga- 
tion and law. We have the idea of law, to start with, in our 
physical and scientific researches and classifications, from our 
consciousness of duty and law. It arises not from an external 
observation of what is, but from an internal conviction of 
what should be. The materialist admits that we are com- 
pelled, by the constitutional tendency of our mind, to classify 
phenomena according to ideal conceptions, or rational ideas. 
Hence we have this idea from reason, and not fiom obser- 
vation. 

We have the idea of causation from our consciousness of 
an energizing will, which is power in action, controlling our 
powers and organs, as second causes, to produce effects, our 
acts. We have the idea of order, only as we have the idea 
that our mind is a unit, producing a totality of personal 
phenomena, our conduct ; and that all the varied personal 
phenomena constitute a whole. We have from consciousness, 
and an intuitive exercise of our reason, this idea of our 
mind as an intelligent cause, producing co-ordination, adjust- 
ment and adaptation, into an order, method and system, and 
exhibiting design, purpose and plan. We regard our powers 
as second causes, controlled by an intelligent, spontaneous, 
self-acting cause, the efficient cause, our mind. We intuitively 
recognize co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation, design, 
plan, system and law, with prevision of, and provision for, 



264 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

coming existences and events, to be the result of intelligent 
cause, and that alone. A man who denies this, is unworthy 
of one moment's reasoning. In the regular recurrence of the 
same phenomena, under the same circumstances, which the 
materialist admits, and which he calls law, we see order. In 
the harmonious working of the forces of nature, Avhicli he 
calls acting under law, we see co-ordination and arrangement. 
In the operation of these forces, to produce the same phe- 
nomena, we see a systematic and methodical adaptation of the 
forces to produce the phenomena. In the uniform action of 
each animal and plant, in accordance with the laws of its 
being, we see that the animal was designed for this life as an 
end. In the harmonious operation of all of the forces and 
existences of nature, we see adjustment of the forces and 
existences to each other and the whole of nature. In the 
regular development of nature forward on a scale of progres- 
sion, Avhich the materialist calls evolution, we see plan, pro- 
vision, and forethought. In the preparation for coming phe- 
nomena, and in the arrangement of forces to produce them, 
and in the correlation of other existences to meet them, seen 
all through nature, we see provision for them, forethought 
and providence. All these facts or ideas that pervade all 
nature, have their necessary and only conceivable ground in 
mind. A man who denies either the fact or the deduction 
iVom it, is not worthy of one moment's notice. 

As man is conscious that co-ordination, adjustment, and 
adaptation into order, system, and method, exhibiting plan, 
design, and purpose, according to law, and displaying previ- 
sion and provision, in his own operations, have their ground 
in his own personal thinking, willing self, as an intelligent 
cause ; so he reasons, and is compelled to conclude that adap- 
tation, design, plan, law, and providence in nature have their 
necessary and only conceivable ground in a personal, thinking, 
moral being or intelligent cause. 

Then man is compelled, by what he sees in nature, to rise 
above the forces of nature and matter and its properties, to 
an intelligence anterior to them and above them. There are 
but tw^o wavs to evade this. One is to deny that there is co- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 265 

ordination, adjustment, adaptation, design, method, system, 
plan, law, forethought, and providence in nature. The man 
who does this is not worthy of one moment's notice, for the 
writings of the most eminent evolutionists abound in descrip- 
tions of nature, in which these characteristics are recognized 
as the essential characteristics of nature, even while attempt- 
ing to disprove them, and in the expressions denying them. 
The other is, to deny that they necessarily imply the pre- 
existence of intelligence. This also is the abnegation of all 
reason and sense. As this is the crucial question of the whole 
discussion, we will elaborate it further. There are sixty sim- 
ple original elementary substances in nature. These combine 
by cohesion to form homogeneous substances. They combine 
by affinity to form compound substances. Some of these 
will combine only with certain others, and not with others. 
They combine only in definite mathematical proportions. 
Parts of compound bodies combine Avith certain simples, and 
with certain parts of other compound bodies, and always in 
exact mathematical proportions. Different proportions give 
entirely different substances. Thus, out of only sixty elemen- 
tary substances, are formed the almost infinite variety of com- 
pound substances in existence, and always in accordance with 
the most exact mathematical law and proportion. This gives 
co-ordination, adjustment, law, and plan, and system, before 
the first constitution of matter. It places mind anterior to 
the primordial constitution of matter, to originate and realize 
these great rational ideas in the primordial constitution of 
matter. It does away with all idea of the self-existence of 
matter, for it makes of matter a subordinate agent, a manu- 
factured article, the product of mind in its primordial consti- 
tution, and places mind anterior to matter, to give to it its 
first constitution. Then before the very first constitution of 
matter, there was in idea co-ordination, adjustment, adapta- 
tion, order, system, plan, law, and forethought, and prevision 
of, and provision for, what was realized in the first constitution 
of matter, and what afterward appeared in its combinations. 
There was mind, in which these ideas existed, an originator, 
and as this was befoie tiic first constitution of matter, or 



266 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

before matter existed, a creator of matter, and of all except 
himself, an Absolute Cause. 

Again, the essential properties of matter existed in it in its 
first constitution, or at its first existence. We can not con- 
ceive of its existence without these essential properties or 
forces, as they are sometimes called, attraction, repulsion, 
adhesion, cohesion, afiinity, rejection, electricity, heat and 
crystallization. These are co-ordinated, adjusted and adapted, 
as to where, and when, and how long, and how often, and in 
what order, and with what power they will act. They are 
co-ordinated, adjusted and adapted in an order, system and 
method according to law and plan. They are co-ordinated 
and adjusted in like manner to act, react and interact. This 
necessitates forethought, prevision of, and provision for, all 
this, and plan, system and law, before the first action or ex- 
istence of these essential properties of matter. As we can not 
conceive of matter existing without these properties, they ex- 
tend into its primordial constitution. Again, we prove matter 
to be a manufactured article, a subordinate agent ; and, again, 
do we prove that mind was anterior to the first constitution 
of matter, originating and realizing the co-ordination, adjust- 
ment, plan, system and law realized in the primordial consti- 
tution of matter. 

There is adjustment, adaptation, system and prescient plan 
and provision in the primordial constitution and form of 
things. From sixty elementary substances, in consequence 
of their properties, we have all the almost infinite variety of 
existences and substances difiering so widely from each other. 
These qualities and properties were designed, planned, ad- 
justed and arranged in these elementary substances, before 
they existed, before their first constitution. Before the first 
constitution of things these ideas existed, for they are real- 
ized in the first constitution ; number of first elements or 
elementary substances ; the amount of each elementary sub- 
stance in the whole ; the properties and characteristics of 
each elementary substance; the essential properties of matter, 
and the forces of matter, and their essential characteristics ; 
forms of matter, such as solidity, fluidity and gaseousness. 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 267 

These are necessary to existence and motion. The suscepti- 
bility of change of form, from one form to another: the forces 
to produce such change of form. These forces have all been 
co-ordinated, adjusted and adapted, as to where, and when, 
and how long, and how often, and in what order, and with 
W'hat power they will act. All force, in all these particulars, 
acts in exact mathematical proportion and law. Chemical 
action does also. So does crystallization. It is in accordance 
with exact geometrical proportion and law, in form and rela- 
tions. The very highest conceptions and ideas and laws of 
reason are realized in the first constitution of things. This 
necessitates co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation into 
order, system and method, exhibiting design, purpose and 
plan, according to law, expressing and realizing the highest 
ideas of reason in the very primordial constitution of things. 
This necessitates the existence of mind anterior to such first 
constituti(m, in which these ideas originated. These funda- 
mental characteristics of the primordial constitution of things, 
prove matter to be a manufactured article, a subordinate 
agent, the product of mind. They place reason anterior to 
the first constitution of matter and force, the very primordial 
constitution, of all things, to give to them this primordial con- 
stitution, and as the ground and source of all being. The 
thoughtful attention of all materialists is called to this argu- 
ment. With a grasp as relentless and resistless as the des- 
tiny that he assumes controls all things, it places him face to 
face with the first constitution of all things, and proves 
matter and force to be manufactured articles, subordinate 
agents, the products of mind, disproving the self-existence 
of matter and force, and places mind anterior to matter and 
force, to give to them their very primordial constitution, or 
to create them. It compels him to recognize, in the pri- 
mordial constitution of things, the realization of the highest 
conceptions of reason. It compels him to recognize the fact 
that mind existed anterior to matter and force, and gave to 
them their first constitution, or created them. It compels 
him to rise above matter and force, to their Creator, existing 



268 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

anterior to them, and make miud the ground and beginning 
of ail behig. 

Let us here notice a fallacy of the materialist. He covers 
up the lack of causation in his speculations, the lack of con- 
necting links of thought, the lack of any rational explanation 
of phenomena, by convenient phrases, such as "laws of 
nature," "nature of things." Doubtless, nature has laws in 
accordance with which it acts, or a manner of acting, and 
doubtless all things have a nature. But when the materialist 
talks of laws of nature producing that nature in which they 
inhere, and without which they themselves could not exist, 
and of the nature of things giving a nature to things, he con- 
founds antecedent and consequent, cause and effect. It is an 
attempt to cover up the nakedness of a system with the fig- 
leaves of a convenient phrase. There is a reason for the use 
of such evasive expressions. Such are the characteristics of 
the laws of nature, and the nature of things, that we can 
not describe them without using terms that imply the pre- 
existence of mind, and the operation of mind in them. The 
only terms that the materialist can use in his descriptions of 
nature, and in his speculations, from the very nature and 
constitution of our thinking, imply the pre-existence of mind, 
to give to them these characteristics. Does he say fixed 
laws? Who fixed the laws? Does he say established laws? 
Who established the laws? Does he say order of nature, or 
orderly laws of nature? Who gave to nature and its laws 
this order? Does he say invariable, unchangeable, unal- 
terable laAvs? Who gave to the laws their co-ordination and 
adjustment in this invariable operation? Every expression, 
from the nature and constitution of our thinking, implies the 
pre-existence of mind, that fixed, established, regulated, set 
in order or adjusted the laws of nature or the nature of 
things. Then, in the present constitution of things, and all 
along the stream of being, until we reach the primordial 
constitution of things, and in this primordial constitution 
especially, we find characteristics that, by the laws of its 
thinking, reason is compelled to throw back on pre-existent 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTIOI^. 269 

mind as their necessary and only ground. Then mind is the 
ground and beginning of all things. 

The attempt of the evolutionist to escape intelligent cause 
by his hypothesis of evolution, is as senseless as the course of 
the ostrich, that seeks to escape its pursuer by thrusting its 
head into the sand. Suppose that we admit that the germs 
of all things, and all forces now in operation, existed in the 
primordial constitution of things, and also that all conditions 
existed there also that brought these forces into play and de- 
veloped these germs and forces into what now exists ; we are 
compelled to step further back and ask: "Whence came these 
germs, these forces, and their properties, these conditions and 
laws? Whence came the adaptation, co-ordination and ad- 
justment of these conditions, forces and laws?" These imply 
anterior to that first constitution, with Avhich the evolutionist 
starts, co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation, design, pur- 
j)Ose, system, plan and law, for this course of evolution and 
for all the order, beauty and harmony that now exists. The 
materialist can not stop until he reaches that which has its 
only ground in mind. He is compelled, unless he, ostrich- 
like, hides his head in some ambiguous phrase, or madly de- 
thrones reason, to recognize mind as the ground and beginning 
of all things. 

But let us examine more carefully the course of progressive 
development that is claimed by modern science, and that the 
materialist claims obviates the necessity of a God, and dis- 
proves his existence. Science teaches that the world's history 
has been divided into epochs, characterized by changes in the 
order and constitution of things. In each epoch there has 
obtained a certain condition of things and existences suited to 
such condition. There was a uniform succession of the same 
types as long as the world was suited to them. There was 
a gradual change of conditions, during which existences be- 
came unfitted to surroundings, and the earth became fitted 
for higher existences. There was a degeneracy of lower types 
and a final extinction, and a substitution of higher types, for 
which the earth was fitted. These various successive types 
were introduced in their highest perfection at their first ap- 



270 THE PKOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

pearance. There was a progressive evolution of new orders, 
iu successive steps, in conformity to fixed ideal archetypes, 
showing a comprehensive plan, a pre-existent design and con- 
trol and government. 

As the introduction of new species was by successive steps, 
and in their highest perfection at first, they were creations. 
Our conclusion, then, is that a progression on an ascending 
scale must have had a beginning when materials were ad- 
justed and proportioned, and forces co-ordinated and adapted 
to produce the progression. The created series are developed 
by successive steps, and according to a plan, with a distinct 
end in view, hence the end must have been contemplated from 
the beginning. The process is characterized by intelligence 
and unity, and tlie results by moral quality, hence the cause 
must have been an intelligent, moral Power, adequate to the 
production of such phenomena, or God. 

This argument can be built up from another series of ob- 
servations. There is co-ordination, adjustment and adapta- 
tion, into order, system, and method, exhibiting design, 
purpose and plan, in accordance with law, expressing and 
realizing the highest ideas of reason, in the present order of 
things. In the form, quantity, selection and purpose of all 
that now exists, and also in the manner of acting, as to where, 
when, how often, how long, in what order, and with what 
power they shall act, all these characteristics appear in 
every step. There was plan, prevision and provision for man 
and animals millions of years before they existed, according 
to geology. Igneous rock is the basis, and stratified rock that 
man uses is easy of access. Metals are prepared for his use, 
and placed where they were protected from destruction, and 
yet where he has access to them. 

Vast vegetable growths, that had no conceivable use when 
growing, were buried millions of years ago in coal-beds, pro- 
tected from destruction, and yet accessible to man for whom 
they were prepared. Kocks, coal and metals are placed where 
they will not interfere with man's wants, and yet meet his 
wants. Coal and metals are near each other. Coal is in 
countries where it is needed. It was not until man appeared 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 271 

that the object of all this preparation could be appre- 
hended. The drift period prepared and mixed the soils for 
cultivation. Domesticable animals appeared with man. In 
all this we see law, design, prevision of, and provision for, 
coming existences. The adaptation of organs and existences 
to ends, and of agencies in nature to definite purposes, imply 
design, plan, forethought aiui intelligence. The theory of 
adaptation by unconscious selection of unintelligent forces is 
unconscious nonsense. Either existences were adapted to 
conditions at first, or they were not. If they were adapted at 
first, who adapted them? If they were not adapted, how 
did they exist in this unadapted state until adapted ? To 
say that unadapted conditions adapted them, or produced 
adaptation, is to substitute destructive agency for construct- 
ive cause. This bringing existences together in time and 
adaptation, shows intelligence, forethought, plan and adjust- 
ment. 

The historic development claimed by the evolutionist, and 
the progress wrought out in it, establishes design, plan, gov- 
ernment and providence. This is especially evident when we 
reflect that this development has been produced in each na- 
tion by influences from without. There has been no spon- 
taneous civilization. Then in the primordial constitution of 
things — in the provision made in such first constitution for the 
development that followed — in the course of development — in 
the present order of things and in the progress of human 
history, there has been system, law, intelligence and will — 
one cause, one intelligence, one mind. Or mind is the abso- 
lute cause or ground of all being. We have thus in every 
department of research traced the stream of thought back to 
the fountain — to the idea of ideas — the underlying idea of all 
thought, and found it to be Mind, Intelligence or God, the 
Cause of Causes, Jehovah, the only Self-existent One. We 
have, we believe, demonstrated that the Cause of Causes is 
Absolute Mind. 

We come now to the fifth objection urged against tlie the- 
istic argument. Man could not rise to an apprehension of an 
infinite or absolute cause. He would run through an endless 



272 THE PKOBLEM OP PEOBLEMS. 

series of finite causes and effects, and never rise to an appre- 
hension of the absolute in causation. We affirm that we do 
rise to an apprehension of the infinite in every department 
of thought. From a knowledge of the finite, we pass through 
the relatively infinite to an apprehension of the absolutely 
infinite. We take the materialist himself as our proof of 
this. He assumes the absolute infinity of space and time, 
and the self-existence of matter and force, the eternity, self- 
existence, independence, and self-sustenance of matter and 
force. He has the absolute, the infinite, the unconditioned 
in space, duration and being, in matter and force. All men, 
but a few atheists, affirm as positively the infinite, the abso- 
lute, the unconditioned in mind. The materiahst is evidence 
that man does rise to an apprehension of the absolute, the 
infinite and unconditioned, and that he can do so. The fact 
that nearly all men do affirm that the Absolute, the ground 
of all being, is Mind, proves that they do rise to an appre- 
hension of Absolute Intelligent Cause. The fact that the 
materialist denies that man can do so, is proof that he can, 
for he, in his denial, does what he affirms can not be done. 

But it is urged that we could only have an idea of an 
Artificer, a Kuler, Judge, and Executive, but not of a Cre- 
ator. We need only refer to our demonstration that matter 
and force are subordinate agents, manufactured articles, to 
refute this objection. 

Atheists have lately made a desperate attempt to destroy 
the design argument. They are conscious that unless it be 
destroyed, men will always accept the existence of God as a 
demonstrated truth. Even theologians and eminent divines 
have conceded that the design argument is untenable. We 
propose to show that they have acted hastily, and to vindi- 
cate this grandest of all theistic arguments, and to show that 
the objections are utterly fallacious. The design argument is 
as impregnable as the throne of the Eternal One, Avhose 
existence it so clearly demonstrates. 

The most famous attack on it is the application of redudio 
ad absurdum. It is said, if order and arrangement imply de- 
sign and contrivance, and design and contrivance imply a 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 273 

designing mind, then as God has order and arrangement in 
his attributes, there is design and contrivance exhibited in his 
being ; and if design and contrivance be exhibited in his be- 
ing, then there must have been a designing mind, that con- 
trived and designed this order and arrangement, and so on, 
ad infinitum. Again, if adaptation in nature implies intelli- 
gence that produced this adaptation, then as God is adapted 
to the work of the creation, government and sustenance of 
nature, there must have been an intelligence that adapted 
him, and so on, ad infinitum. This attempt to destroy the de- 
sign argument is subtle, but it is a fallacy, nevertheless. The 
first fallacy is in a confusion of terms — a confusion of things, 
not at all similar. We are conscious that we have one indi- 
visible, unit mind, one conscious, willing, planning, reason- 
ing, free, moral, responsible entity, or self So we intuitively 
conclude that the intelligent cause, the absolute mind, is one 
indivisible person or being. We are conscious that our mind 
has attributes or faculties, but not organs or parts like a 
material organization. We intuitively conclude that the in- 
finite mind has attributes, and not organs or parts. We 
know that there is harmony of attributes in our mind, and 
not order and arrangement of parts or organs, as in a mate- 
rial organization. So Ave conclude there is infinite harmony 
in the infinite attributes of the infinite mind, but not order 
and arrangement of parts or organs, as in a material organi- 
zation. Then the argument is worthless, for it confounds 
parts of a material organism with attributes of mind, and 
order and arrangement of parts of a material organism with 
harmony in the attributes of mind ; and confounds an indi- 
visible mind with an organism made up of parts. Again, 
there is adaptation of created organisms to certain ends, but 
in mind there is potency or sufficiency to certain acts. There 
is in the Divine being, infinite and self-existent potency or 
sufficiency to the work of creation, but not adaptation to the 
work of creation. Here again we have a confusion of terms. 
Adaptation of a material organism to an end is confounded 
with potency or power in mind to act. And the fallacy is es- 
pecially gross when we remember that imparted adaptation 



274 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

of a created organism to the end for .which it was created, is 
confounded with inherent and self-existent power of a self- 
existent mind to perform an act. Then as material organism 
is radically and essentially different from mind, the argument 
can not bj applied to the infinite mind for want of analogy. 
Analogy, if the argument were based on analogy, would not 
permit us to carry the argument further than to the infinite 
mind, or rather it would only lead us up to the infinite 
mind. 

But the argument is not analogical. It is purely and 
severely inductive. Analogy between the works of man in 
the marks of intelhgence they display, and wliat we see in 
nature, in displaying the same characteristics, suggests the 
argument. The argument is strictly inductive, and analogy 
stops with suggesting the argument, which is based on intui- 
tions of reason we can no more deny than we can our own 
existence. The premises are, that certain characteristics in 
man's works indicate design, contrivance and purpose. Co- 
ordination, adjustment and adaptation, imply design, purpose, 
and plan, system, method and law. No one worthy of one 
moment's thought dare deny this. This is an intuition of 
reason. The materialist dare not deny it, and can not dis- 
prove it. Design, purpose, plan, method and system, imply 
an intelligence that designed and planned the co-ordination, 
adjustment and adaptation, for some purpose or end. Meth- 
od, system and law imply mind also. The materialist dare 
not attempt to disprove this, and dare not deny it. There is 
in nature, in every part, as a fundamental, a basis character- 
istic, co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation, into order, 
system, method and plan. The writings of materialists them- 
selves, are overwhelming proof of this. This co-ordination, 
adjustment and adaptation into order, system, method and 
plan, imply design, purpose and plan, in accordance with law 
and system. If the materialist denies this, I will take any book 
written by materialists concerning the phenomena of nature, 
even those written to disprove teleology in nature, and I will 
show that they can not speak of nature, or describe its pro- 
cesses without expressing its teleology, ascribing to it teleology, 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 275 

and confessing that it is constructed on the idea of teleology. 
An admirable illustration of this is seen in Darwin's writings, 
written to disprove teleology. Design, purpose, plan, system, 
method and law in nature, imply mind, as the only conceiva- 
ble source of this design, plan, system and law. There can 
be no escape from this. 

The argument, then, is not analogical, but severely and 
purely inductive. The materialist must disprove the prem- 
ises. This he can not do. Or show that the reasoning is 
defective — that the conclusion does not follow from the pre- 
mises. This he can not do. The argument is as impregnable 
to his assaults, as Gibraltar to a pelting with paper wads. 
The attempted redadio ad absiirdum, only reduces the one 
resorting to it to an absurd position, as one who utterly mis- 
apprehends what he attacks. 

Again, in reply to this attempt to destroy the design argu- 
ment, by reducing it to an absurdity, by extending it infin- 
itely, and to the claim that we would be compelled to run 
through an endless chain of causation, or an endless series 
of causes and effects ; we assert that to do so would be a 
most palpable violation of a fundamental law of our thinking, 
and a violation of an intuition or inherent tendency of 
reason, to pass out to an apprehension of ,the infinite, to rise 
to an apprehension of the absolute ; and Ave are compelled by 
the same law to stop, when we reach it, as the mind stops 
when it reaches the absolute, it stops, when it reaches infinite 
intelligence or absolute cause. In this infinite intelligence 
we have adequate cause — sufficient ground for all that exists, 
and we do not inquire what caused the absolute cause. We 
have that to which we fasten our chain of causation and 
stop, for reason cuts short the ratiocination of the logical un- 
derstanding, and rests on the absolute cause as the summa- 
tion of all causation and being. The atheist admits the 
absurdity of this endless chain of causation, with which he 
attempts to burden the theistic argument and break it down. 
One of the favorite devices of the atheist is to restate the 
theistic argument, and caricature it, and make an absurdity 
of it. We will relieve him of all such labor of love, and state 



276 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

our positions for ourselves. Another is to insist on attaching 
to the theistic argument some absurdity that bears some 
jingh'ng analogy to it. We shall reject all such extra bur- 
dens, and reject all such old men of the sea. 

The atheist, in pursuing the same line of argument in 
other departments of thoug'it, repudiates, with scorn, such 
absurdity ; and we will not allow him to load us down with 
what he rejects. All atheists assume the eternal, the self- 
existent, the independent, the uncaused, and the uncondi- 
tioned in matter and force, or in a system of matter and 
force. He insists on rising out of a chain of derived or 
dependent being to the absolute and unconditioned. He 
says, "Out of nothing, nothing comes," hence something 
must have existed forever, or there must be a self-existent, 
unconditioned, uncaused ground for all being. In so doing 
he admits the absurdity of what he attempts to fasten on to 
the theistic argument, and refutes himself, and establishes 
the law of our thinking, the tendency of reason, to which we 
refer. 

All materialists pass out into the absolute in space, dura- 
tion, matter, force, and being. All others do the same, and 
stop with the absolute in these, as does the materialist. In 
obedience to the same law of mind, all but the materialist 
pass out to the absolute in mind, and as he stops with the. 
absolute in space, duration, force, matter and being, so they 
stop with the absolute in mind. As we do not ask what 
bounds absolute space, or when eternity began, knowing that 
being absolute they have neither boundary nor beginning, 
so we do not ask what caused the absolute cause, knowing 
that being absolute he has neither cause nor condition. 
In all our reasonings we invariably pass from the known to 
the unknown, and from a comprehension of the finite to an 
apprehension of the infinite. Men have ever done so, in 
space, duration, power, being, and mind. All men accept 
the absolute in space, duration, power, and being. Only a 
few reject the absolute in mind, and they do so in violation 
of our nature and all consistency. If our nature be valid as 
a basis of reasoning, or as an instrument of reasoning, then 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 277 

apprehensions are verities. If we go beyond experience, to 
an apprehension of the absolute and unconditioned in mind, 
so does the materialist in space, time, and being, and power 
of independence and self-sustenance in matter and force. He 
has either to assume the eternity of matter and force and their 
properties, or the eternity of systems as we now see them, for 
he says, " ' Out of nothing, nothing comes,' hence something 
must have ever existed." If so, it had infinite being, in in- 
finite duration and infinite space, with infinite power of self- 
existence, independence, and self-sustenance, or is uncon- 
ditioned and absolute. The materialist has to rise to the 
absolute and unconditioned himself. 

In infinite space we have the macrocosm or universe. From 
a relative infinity of microcosms, we rise to an apprehension 
of the macrocosm or universe, pervaded by order throughout, 
uniting all into a cosmos, or infinite order or system. From 
finite design in each microcosm, and from a relative infinity 
of these microcosms, arranged into an infinite macrocosm or 
cosmos or universe, displaying correlated and co-ordinated 
design throughout, we rise to an apprehension of infinite 
design in an infinite universe. We have thus infinite co- 
ordination, adjustment, and adaptation into infinite order, sys- 
tem, and method, exhibiting infinite plan^ design, and purpose, 
according to law, expressing infinite ideas of infinite reason 
and thought. These have a necessary ground in infinite rea- 
son. The primordial constitution of things, as we have abun- 
dantly established, compells us to place infinite mind back of 
and above the very first constitution of things, as the beginning 
and ground of all being except his own, and thus we have 
absolute mind as the ground and beginning of all being. 
Here reason rests satisfied, having found the absolute and 
unconditioned. It sees no reason to even think of the absolute 
cause as an efifect. It stops in the chain of causation, having 
fastened it to absolute cause, the ground and summation of 
all causation and condition. As reason declares that eternity 
had no beginning, and infinite space no boundary, so it afiirms 
that the absolute cause, absolute mind, can have no antecedent 
c.uisc, but must be the basis, ground, and summation of al] 



278 THE PEOBLKM OF PROBLEMS. 

causation and condition, just as absolute space and time in- 
clude all space and time. Eeason sees nothing in the abso- 
lute cause, absolute mind, that compells it to continue the 
chain of reasoning, the chain of causation, further; but, on 
the contrary, the very constitution and law of its thinking 
cuts short all such attempts, and forbids it. There is but one 
way to evade this, and that is to deny all reasoning, all rules 
of reasoning, and all basis for reasoning. This the atheist 
does in every case, when, by inexorable reason, he is brought 
face to face with absolute mind or intelligent cause. 

It may be asked, why does not reason stop with infinite effect 
or with an infinite universe, if it rests satisfied in the infinite, 
and will go no further ? Because it is an effect, and reason 
afiSrms that every effect must have had an adequate cause, 
an infinite effect must have had an infinite cause, and an 
effect implying intelligence must have had an intelligent 
cause. Here reason rests, having found the absolute intelli- 
gent cause adequate to all that exists, which satisfies reason, 
and which reason affirms, being the ground of all causation 
and condition, must be uncaused and unconditioned. Infinite 
order, adaptation, and adjustment, in the infinite effect, imply 
infinite design, plan, and system, and infinite design, plan, 
and system imply an infinite designing mind, or absolute mind, 
or absolute intelligent cause. But infinite harmony in the 
infinite 'attributes of the infinite mind do not imply design 
and contrivance in the being of the infinite mind, for the 
infinite mind has one personality, and has no parts or organs, 
but infinite self-existent attributes in infinite and self-existent 
harmony and unity. It implies merely eternal, self-existent 
jind infinite harmony in self-existent, infinite attributes of the 
absolute mind in whom they inhere. Infinite and self-existent 
harmony, in the infinite and self-existent attributes of the 
absolute mind, do not condition them in space, time, sequence, 
causation or being, for these infinite and self-existent attri- 
butes can not themselves be thus conditioned, nor can the 
absolute mind in Avhom they inhere. Then we have reached 
the absolute mind, the absolute being, that can not be condi- 
tioned in space, time, causation, sequence, or being, and is the 



thp: theistic solution. 279 

ground, the beginning, the summation of all causation, con- 
dition, and being. 

If it be objected that we have more in our conclusion than 
in our premises, we deny that such is the case. Finite de- 
sign, adaptation, cause and mind, are not our premises. They 
are merely the occasion of our rising to an apprehension of 
infinite design, plan, and prescience. We have these as in- 
tuitions, and they are valid if our nature be valid, and we 
have a valid basis for reasoning at all. Then from infinite or- 
der, adjustment, and adaptation in the universe, which no one 
can deny, as our premise, we have infinite design, plan and 
prescience, which are equally undeniable as our second prem- 
ise ; and from these premises of infinite design, plan and pre- 
science we have Infinite Mind, Absolute Cause. Our prem- 
ises are infinite, our conclusion is infinite, and the objection is 
not valid. If it be objected that we might have a cause for 
each effect, and thus have an infinity of first causes for an in- 
finity of finite effects, we reply that the unity of the effects 
into one system, and the unity of the causes into a system in 
the order that pervades the Cormos, shows a common absolute 
ground in which they inhere. The generalization of all 
things into a Cosmos, or Universe, by the athiest, proves this. 
But he stops with effect. As Ave have seen, this effect must 
have had a cause, and it demands an intelligent cause, hence 
reason never rests until it has reached this Absolute Intelligent 
Cause, this idea of ideas, this ultimate ground, the summation 
of all causation and condition. If it be objected that we rise 
to the absolute by an empiricism of the finite, we reply that 
such is a necessary tendency and law of our thinking ; and 
such is the course and result in all thought. From an experi- 
ence, in consciousness, sensation, and reason, of the finite, va- 
riable, contingent and conditioned, we rise to an apprehension 
of the infinite. We pass through a relative infinity of such 
existences to the self-existent, necessary, absolute and uncon- 
ditioned. Our experiences always necessarily lead us to an 
apprehension of the infinite. This is true in space, duration, 
causation, being and power. Materialists, as well as all 
others, rise out of experience to an apprehension of the in- 



280 THE' PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

finite in space, duration, causation, being and power. All 
but the materialist, also, rise to an apprehension of the infin- 
ite in intelligence, or Infinite Intelligent Cause. If the valid- 
ity of this regress from the finite to the infinite in causation 
and intelligence, or in intelligent causation, be questioned; 
we reply that the fact that all men do so is undeniable, and 
if our reason be valid as a basis of reasoning, or as a means 
of reasoning, it must be accepted. All men accept the valid- 
ity of such regress in space, duration, being and power in 
matter and force, and so we afiirm they must accept the va- 
lidity of a precisely similar regress in intelligent causation, 
especially since, as we have shown, intelligent causation must 
be anterior to matter and force, which the athiest accepts as 
absolute and unconditioned in being, duration and power of 
self-existence, self-sustenance and independence. To the 
transcendentalist, who attempts to be ontological before he is 
empirical, or without being empirical, Ave say we must be 
empirical before we can rise to the ontological standpoint. 
We observe particulars, then generalize, and then rise to an 
apprehension of the absolute. Even then we must continu- 
ally return to facts and experiences as revealed to us in con- 
sciousness and sensation, and verify our ontological afliirma- 
tions by the sure test of experience and common sense. In 
all science, by a careful observation, collocation and study of 
phenomena, and comparison of characteristics, as revealed to 
us in experience, aided by intuitions of reason, and guided 
by them, we reach the great underlying principles, the great 
central truths on Avhich phenomena rest, and with w^hich we 
can construct a science. But we have to appeal continually 
to experience, and verify our elaboration and application of 
these princi2)les, and their ramifications, and their accuracy. 
I have somewhere read of a conjurer that boasted that he 
could set a ladder upright in an open field, and climb to the 
top of it, and balance himself Another retorted that he 
could do the same thing. He could do more. He could 
climb to the top of the ladder and then draw up the ladder after 
him! The efforts of tran.?cendentalists are precisely like this 
idle boast. They attempt to climb the ladder of experience to 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 281 

the ontological standpoint, and then draw up the ladder after 
them. 

If it be objected that our course of reasoning Avould give us 
only an Artificer, Lawgiver, Kuler, Judge and Executive, and 
not a Creator, we reply that our argument applies to the pri- 
mordial constitution of things, as well as to the present order. 
As we have shown, the argument places mind anterior to mat- 
ter and force, to give to them their very first constitution, and 
proves them to have been created, to have been subordinate 
agents, manufactured articles, the products of mind. Of late 
much attention has been paid to the molecular structure or 
constitution of matter; Loschmidt, Stoney, Thomson and 
Maxwell have reached ultimate molecules that are unaltera- 
ble in mass, weight and properties, and that are indestructible. 

The essential quantities of these molecules, and their rela- 
tion to each other, prove them to be manufactured articles, and 
preclude the idea of their being eternal and self-existent. 
These properties and relations are a collocation of things 
which we have no trouble to conceive of as being different ; 
hence, it is not self-existent and eternal, for it is not necessary. 
It is not of such a character that we can not conceive of its 
being otherwise than as it is and true, as is the case with all 
that is self-existent. Says Maxwell, in the ablest paper 
ever written on this subject : " They continue this day as they 
were created, perfect in number,. and measure, and weight; 
and from the ineffaceable character impressed on them, we 
may learn that those aspirations, after accuracy in measure- 
ment, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we 
reckon our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they 
are the essential constituents of the nature of Him who in 
the beginning created not only the heavens and the earth, 
but the materials of the heavens and the earth." Then the 
first constitution of things prove a Creator of all things as 
clearly as a man's works establish his existence and agency. 
The line of reasoning does not end with giving us an Artifi- 
cer, it as clearly gives us a Creator, and by the same 
reasoning. The argument applies far more forcibly to the 
primordial constitution of things than it does to the present 
24 



282 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

constitution of things after this constitution has been given, 
for it is inconceivably easier to believe that the present or- 
der of matter and force produces all existences and phenom- 
ena than to conceive that blind, irrational force and matter 
assumed the properties and relations of the first constitution 
of things spontaneously. 

If it be objected that the data are not the same, and that 
in one case we have intelligence shaping materials already 
existing, a common event, and in the other a creating of 
something out of nothing, a unique act, utterly unknown to 
experience, we I'eply that similarity of action in this respect 
is no part of the argument. The argument is not analogical, 
and hence analogy or similarity of acts is no part of the argu- 
ment. The argument is strictly inductive, and based on intu- 
itions of reason that can no more be denied than we can deny 
our own existence. Dissimilarity in an essential particular 
is freely conceded. Man shapes materials already existing. 
The other is a creation out of nothing previously existing. 
But the questions pertinent to the issue are: Are there in- 
dubitable evidences of intelligence in man's works? Are there 
equally indubitable evidences of intelligence in creation? Do 
not the same characteristics that indubitably establish an in- 
telligent artificer in man's works, as clearly prove an intelli- 
gent creator in the first constitution of things? If the same 
characteristics are seen in the first constitution of things that 
are seen in man's work in shaping materials, do they not as 
clearly establish an intelligent cause for the first constitution 
of things, or an intelligent Creator, as they establish an intel- 
ligent artificer for man's work in shaping materials? Do cer- 
tain characteristics in man's work in shaping materials prove 
thit his works had an intelligent cause, or prove him to he 
an intelligent artificer or cause? Do men, when they see 
these characteristics in man's work, conclude that there must 
have been an intelligent artificer or cause of these works? 
Do they reason correctly? Must not they so reason? Are 
the same characteristics, the essential, the pervading charac- 
teristics of the first constitution of things in creation? If 
they prove an intelligent artificer or cause in shaping raateri- 



I 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 283 

als, do not they as clearly prove an intelligent cause for the first 
constitution of things, or an intelligent Creator? Then the 
fact that one is a shaping of material already existing, and 
the other a creation of material, makes no figure in the case. 
The issue is, Are the same characteristics seen pervading the 
first constitution of materials or creating materials, as in 
sliaping materials? If they prove intelligence in shaping 
materials, do not they as clearly prove intelligence hi cre- 
ating materials? The argument is strictly inductive, and 
can not be evaded without discarding all reason and sense. 

To Mill's statement that the present order of things is 
such as renders it probable that they have been produced by 
a being possessing great but limited power, and one that could 
not prevent certain infelicities, and could not arrange a per- 
fect state of afffiirs, but merely arranged the best possible 
state of affairs, or who had other ideas than man's happiness 
that he cared more for; we reply that, as we have said, we 
place the Creator anterior to and above every thing as the 
Absolute and Unconditioned, and we have to either believe that 
such a being acts always for the greatest good of all and each 
being, and that what seems dark to us is for the good of eacli 
and all, and that the failure is in our inability, finite as we 
are, to grasp and understand it. Or we have to assume with 
Mill that such a being is unable to secure the good of each 
and all, or that he does not care to do so. When a man 
clearly grasps the idea of an Infinite Creator, Ruler and 
Judge, he will accept without doubt the former position, and 
reject the latter as blasphemy. To the objection that there 
is a chasm between our greatest efiect and the absolute cause 
that we can not bridge or leap, and that we can not bring 
our absolute cause down to our greatest effect, or lift our 
greatest effect up to our absolute cause, we r'eply that we 
have passed out to an apprehension of an infinite effect, and 
hence there is no chasm, no lifting up or bringing down 
needed. There is no chasm between absolute space and rela- 
tively infinite space that needs bridging. We know that ab- 
solute space includes all space. So we know that absolute 
cause includes all cause, and is adequate to all effect. So 



284 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

long as the effect is not greater than the cause there is no 
difficulty. There is no difficulty in the cause being greater 
than the effect. We need make no attempt to lift the effect 
up to the cause in magnitude, nor to drag the cause down to 
the effect. 

A very popular evasion of the idea of Absolute Intelligent 
Cause is the theory of nescience or ignorance. When the 
materialist is overwhelmed with the theistic argument, with 
a marvelous modesty and humility — a humility that would 
extremely edify were it not utter hypocrisy and a cowardly 
evasion of an argument he can not meet — he replies meekly 
that he can not comprehend the infinite. It is unknowable 
and even unthinkable. Hamilton and Mansell, in their mis- 
taken zeal for religion, did just what all such exhibitions ever 
have done — furnished weapons to the enemy. The transcen- 
dental skeptic claimed that he could, by his own unaided rea- 
son, attain to as complete and correct an idea of God as man 
can grasp, hence revelation was needless. Instead of showing 
that man could not attain to a coi'rect idea of God without 
revelation, and that he could be aided by revelation, and 
needed revelation as an objective standard and source of 
teaching, they contended that man could have no idea of God 
without revelation, because God was infinite, and man could 
have no knowledge of the infinite, not even a conception of 
it. The rationalist also undertook to determine a priori what 
God could do, and what he could not do, and to condemn 
the Scriptures for contradicting reason. The reply of Hamil- 
ton and Mansell was, that as man could not have any knowl- 
edge of the infinite, he could pass no such judgments on the 
Scriptures. The infinite was unknowable and even unthink- 
able. The skeptic stepped forward and accepted the position, 
and decorously bowed God out of the universe, through the 
back door of nescience, which these theists had opened for 
him, and through which they intended to drive skepticism; 
and then coolly shut the door in our fiices, and now assures us 
gravely that it is unwise and unscientific to inquire what is 
beyond it, for, to quote Hamilton and Mansell, it is unknow- 
able and unthinkable. Since man could have no knowledge 



THE THEISTIC SOI.UTION. 285 

of the infinite, for it was unknowable and even unthinkable, 
revelation was impossible, for that which was unknowable and 
unthinkable could not be revealed; hence man could not 
have any conception of God, even through revelation. He is, 
as Comte said, barred out of human thought as a needless, 
unknowable, unthinkable hypothesis. 

In opposition to all this learned mist, and profound fog, let 
us pass in review before us a few plain facts of common sense. 
Man has a knowledge of space, and passes out to a relatively 
infinite space, and through it to a conception, an apprehen- 
sion, a knowledge of absolute space, and a knowledge that 
space is absolutely infinite. He has a knowledge of duration, 
aud passes out to a relatively infinite duration, and from it to 
an apprehension of absolutely infinite duration, and a knowl- 
edge that duration must be absolutely infinite. Man has a 
knowledge of force, and, from relatively infinite display, ho 
rises to an apprehension of infinite force. Man has a knowl- 
edge of matter. The materialist affirms that matter and force 
must be, and are, eternal. He has the absolute and the un- 
conditioned in space, duration, being and power in matter and 
force, for he declares they are eternal, self-existent, indepen- 
dent and self-sustaining. Spencer himself has tlie infinite, the 
absolute, the unconditioned in matter and force, in space, 
time, being and power, for he affirms that they are eternal, 
self-existent, independent and self-sustaining. He accepts 
these infinities. He assents to them. He reasons on them, 
and affirms their reality, and man's knowledge of them, and 
the reliability of that knowledge. He bases all his reasoning 
on these infinities, and thus makes man's knowledge of them the 
most reliable of all knowledge, and the basis of all knowledge. 
We affirm also that man has a knowledge of intelligence, 
and that he rises to an apprehension of Infinite Intelligence. 
As man can apprehend the infinite in space, time, being and 
power in matter and force, as Spencer himself affirms, so he 
can and does apprehend the Infinite Intelligent Cause. As 
he knows that there is infinity in space, time, being and pow- 
er, so he knows there is infinity in mind or Infinite Absolute 
Intelligjence, or God. As man's apprehensions of infinity in 



286 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

space, time, being and power are valid, and a valid basis for 
reasoning, so is his apprehension of Infinite Intelligence a 
valid basis for reasoning. Thus out of Spencer's own mouth 
do we establish the validity of the universal affirmation of all 
reason, that there is Absolute Mind. Finally, Spencer as- 
sumes the reality of what he denies, in his attempts to disprove 
it, and proves what he attempts to disprove. He assumes to 
know, and even to comprehend the infinite, the Infinite God, 
when he asserts that he is unknowable. How dare he assert 
that He is unknowable, if he does not comprehend Him? He 
must have an apprehension, a knowledge of the infinite, and 
of the Infinite God, or he could not aflSrm that they are un- 
knowable and unthinkable. He assumes to know all about 
them, when he affirms that they are unknowable ; and he 
thinks of them when he thinks that they are unthinkable. 
I once heard a pouting urchin, who was called upon to recite 
the alphabet, say, when the first letter was pointed out and 
he was asked to name it, " I don't know A, and I can not say 
A." "But," said the teacher, *' you do know it, for you have 
named it, and you can say it, for you said it, while denying 
that you knew or could say it." But he persisted in his as- 
sertion that he did not know A, and could not say A, until 
the rod, that the wise man says is for the back of a fool, cured 
him of his stupidity. In like manner Spencer can not know 
the infinite, and can not think of the infinite, when he shows 
that he knows and thinks of it, while denying that he can. 
As we can not use the rod we can not cure him, as was the 
boy. If the teacher had not spoiled the boy's obstinacy, 
Spencer's followers could have have placed him alongside of 
"our philosopher," as Tyndall fondly calls him, and they 
could say " our hvo philosophers ! " 

Closely allied to this is the assertion that when we expand 
our conception of Cause and Intelligence to infinity it breaks 
down, passes beyond our grasp, and becomes valueless as a 
basis for reasoning, and in our reasoning. We reply that 
when we expand our conceptions of space and time to infin- 
ity they do not break down and elude our grasp, or become 
valueless. They do not become valueless in reasoning or as a 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 287 

basis of reasoning, the rationalist himself being witness. Again 
it is urged that we can not grasp the attributes of an infinite 
cause, hence a knowledge of its mere existence is valueless 
in our reasoning, and as a basis of reasoning. We reply that 
when we expand our conception of space and time to infinit}^ 
we do not change or lose our knowledge of their properties. 
The materialist does not in his reasonings entei-tain for one mo- 
ment the idea that when he has expanded his conceptions of 
space, time, matter and force to infinity, they pass beyond his 
grasp and become valueless as a basis of reasoning. On the 
contrary, he does not use them as a basis of reasoning until 
he has thus expanded them. In like manner when we ex- 
pand our conception of Intelligence and its attributes to infin- 
ity, we do not change their essential nature, nor lose knowl- 
edge of them. As infinite space, time, matter and force are a 
valid basis for our reasoning, and a valid element in it, so is 
God and his attributes a valid basis for, and a valid element 
in, all reasoning. When this idea is applied to prove that we 
can not join our greatest efiect with our Absolute Cause, or 
bring down our Absolute Cause to our greatest efiect, as the 
chasm is so wide between them, and our Absolute cause is 
beyond our grasp, we reply that if it is based on the theory 
of nescience, we have already replied to it. If it be based on 
a want of nexus of thought, we reply that the relation of cau- 
sation between the cause and the efl^ects is the connection of 
thought needed, and the only one needed. So also is the ac- 
tivity of the Creator, his agency in producing the effects, his 
acts, his omnipotence and his omniscience resulting from 
his infinity, sufficient nexus. Reasoning by means of the intu- 
itions of causation, personal activity, omnipotence, govern- 
ment and providence, connects every effect with its cause. 

Finally, when driven from every other refuge, the atheist 
turns at bay and exclaims: ''In your argument based on 
reason and intuition, and especially in the design argument, 
you anthropomorphize God." And with a sanctimonious 
horror he rolls up his eyes at the thought. He is so jealous 
of the dignity, sanctity of the divine attributes, that he 
would blot them out of being before he would impair them 



288 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

by anthropomorphism. It is as genuine and j^rofound as the 
reverence of the pirates, who captured a king's ship, and 
tiien, with their faces prostrate on the deck, made him walk 
the phink into the sea, because they had too profound a rev- 
erence for his majesty to dare to look on him, as they would 
have to do if he remained on board. So with faces prostrate 
in the dust of nescience, these awe-stricken atheists would 
make the Creator walk the plank of silence concerning his 
existence into the sea of oblivion, lest they anthropomor- 
phize his attributes, by speaking of his acts, existence and 
presence, and by recognizing his agency in creation. It is an 
attempt to evade the argument by that strange spell a 
name, and especially a very long one. It must be a terrible 
thing that has such a fearful name. But let us not be 
frightened. Let us dare to look the bugbear in the face. 

Now, we assert that anthropomorphism of a certain kind is 
legitimate, for there can be no conception of nature without 
it, and that it is correct, for the nature of things clearly es- 
tablishes it. Anthropomorphism in mental attributes, moral 
attributes and actions is an absolute truth. Anthropomor- 
phism, in limitations and imperfections, is incorrect, and should 
be most carefully avoided. Let us, then, get the argument 
clearly before us, and see if we anthropomorphize God in 
limitations and imperfections. The issue in the argument is, 
"Do co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation, into order, 
method and system, imply design, plan and purpose? Do 
design, plan, purpose, method and system imply intelligence?" 
They do, and a man bids adieu to reason, and is not worthy 
of one moment's further notice, who denies it. Do co-ordina- 
tion, adjustment and adaptation, into order, method and sys- 
tem, in shaping materials, imply design, purpose and plan, 
in such shaping materials, and does such design, purpose and 
plan, prove that intelligence shaped them? A man must 
stultify his reason to deny it. Is there co-ordination, adjust- 
ment and adaptation, into an order, method and system, in 
the first constitution of things, and in things as they now 
exist? Do this order, method and system, this co-ordination, 
adaptation and adjustment, imply design, plan, purpose and 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 289 

prevision and provision in the first constitution of things, and 
in the present order of things? Do such design, plan, pur- 
pose, prevision and provision, in accordance with law, ex- 
pressing the highest conceptions of reason, imply the action 
of intelligence in the first constitution of things, and the 
present order of things? A man offers an insult to all 
reason who attempts to deny one of these. 

We do not anthropomorphize God in this argument, for w'e 
do not assume or imply that he adjusts, designs and plans as 
man does. The argument does not imply similarity of 
method, but similarity of acts. It does not imply that there 
are any of the limitations or imperfections in the acts of the 
Creator, or any of the study, trial, failure or mistake, in his 
acts, that there are in man's acts. On the contrary, the very 
fact that the Creator is infinite, and His acts are infinite, 
excludes all such imperfection. All theists deny such imper- 
fections, and are always very careful to exclude all such 
erroneous ideas' from their argument. There is dishonesty 
in the persistent effort of the atheist to fasten on the theistic 
argument an absurdity utterly foreign to it, and that all 
theists repudiate. 

When w^e affirm that infinite space and time have the same 
essential attributes as finite space and time, we do not limit 
them as finite space and time are limited. When we expand 
space and time to infinity, we do not change the essential 
attributes of space and time. We only strip them of limita- 
tion and imperfection. When we assert the same attributes 
of absolute space and time that are possessed by finite space 
and time, we do not subject them to the limitations of finite 
space and time. So when we affirm design, purpose and 
plan of the Infinite Cause, we do not, by such an act, sub- 
ject the acts of the Infinite Cause to the same limitations and 
imperfections as are seen in similar acts of man, nor sub- 
ject the Infinite Cause to the limitations and imperfections 
of man. We do not anthropomorphize Him in a senseHhat 
w^ould be objectionable, or in the sense in which the objec- 
tion of the atheist asserts we anthropomorphize Him. We 
give to Him certain attributes, and ascribe to Him certain 
25 



290 'ITIE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

acts, that nature positively ascribes to Him. As the very 
fact that we make space and time absolute, strips them of all 
the imperfections of finite space and time, so does the fact 
that we make the First Cause absolute, strip Him of all the 
imperfections that the atheist objects to, and renders the an- 
thropomorphism that he objects to impossible. It leaves the 
attributes he has in common with man, and the identical 
acts of these attributes, on Avhich the design argument is 
based, free from all imperfections, and all such anthropomor- 
phizing as that on which the objection of the atheist is based. 
The argument is based on a similarity in kind, and not on 
similarity of degree. On the contrary, it asserts that there 
is no similarity of degree. Similarity of degree is utterly 
foreign to the argument. Then let the reader remember that 
the teleological argument does not anthropomorphize God in 
the sense to which the atheist objects, but, on the contrary, 
it denies all such anthropomorphism, and renders it impos- 
sible, except in the dishonest perversion of the argument, 
made by the atheist himself. The argument is not based 
on an assumption that the First Cause is, in imperfections 
and limitations, like man, but on the truth that he is an 
intelligence as man is an intelligence. It is based on the 
truth that there are evidences of the operation of intelligence 
in creation, as there are in man's works. 

To avoid objectionable anthropomorphism, it is not neces- 
sary that we empty the First Cause of all attributes of in- 
telligence, or of all acts of intelligence, and make him an 
infinite characterless unthinkable Nothing-Something, like 
the nirvana of Buddhism. Such a course is like that of the 
man who pulled up every thing there was in his field to get 
rid of the weeds, instead of pulling out the weeds and cul- 
tivating and perfecting his grain. Let us, then, recognize 
the attributes and acts of the Absolute Cause in his works, 
and divest them of all imperfections, and in so doing rele- 
gate the bugbear of the atheist, anthropomorphism, to his own 
misty domain of tlie unthinkable. 

We repudiate also the assertion of Spencer and his disci- 
ples that the term God is but a hypothetical phrase repre- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 291 

senting an unknown quantity, or force, or factor, like the 
term X in an indeterminate equation. When the materialist 
passes back to matter and force, he leaves the problem stated 
as an indeterminate equation, and his matter and force are 
like the letter X in such an equation, unknown, and treating 
the problem, as he does, unknoAvable. But if we examine 
all the data we have in the phenomena, examine all the 
phenomena, and learn carefully the characteristics, we are 
compelled, by every principle of inductive philosophy, to 
ascribe the phenomena to an intelligence, an intelligent 
cause. We must either refuse to accept the fundamental 
data of the problem, or violate every principle of induction, 
or declare the term X to be an intelligence. Then we have 
to violate every principle of inductive philosophy, or from his 
works we must ascribe to him certain attributes of intelli- 
gence. It is an insult to common sense to say that we can 
not determine, from the fundamental characteristics of the 
phenomena that they had an intelligent cause* If I pick 
up a book I can tell that it had an intelligent cause, but 
I can not determine whether an eye or a hand had an in- 
telligent cause. I can learn the character of Socrates, or 
Bacon, or Voltaire, from their works, but I can not deter- 
mine the character of the cause of the universe from his 
works. What would we think of a philosophy that would 
assure us that Shakespeare or Milton were unknowable, and 
their works the productions of a mode of the unknowable. 
But infinitely worse stuff than this is now science and phi- 
losophy. 

Spencer attempts to set to one side the design argument, and 
to illustrate its anthropomorphism, and the absurdity of its 
anthropomorphism by a comparison. He supposes Paley's 
watch to be endowed with intelligence, and to reason concerning 
man, its maker, as man reasons concerning his Creator, in 
the design argument. The watch would be totally in error 
to conclude that man, its maker, was a watch like itself, and 
man is as completely in error when he reasons, in the design 
argument, that his Creator is like himself. Man is no 
nearer the truth than the watch would be. He as errone- 



292 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ously aiithropomorpliises bis Creator as the watch watchizes 
its maker. It is a rather shrewd piece of sophistry, and there 
is a pert smartness of ridicule in it, but it is a most transpar- 
ent fallacy. 

I. His supposition is not even supposable. The act he at- 
tempts to set to one side is real and universal. The act by 
which he attempts to set it to one side is an absurd impossi- 
bility. Men every-where do reason about their Creator. 
Watches do not and can not reason about their maker. Such 
a conceit is madness. To use his own expression it is unthink- 
able, except in violation of all common sense. 

II. There is no analogy in the cases. A watch, an irra- 
tional machine, is, in one case, supposed to reason about its 
maker. In the other, man, an intelligence, does reason about 
his Creator. It does not follow that because a watch, a ma- 
chine incapable of reasoning concerning its maker, is not like 
its cause ; that man, an intelligence, capable of reasoning con- 
cerning his Creator, is not like his cause. 

in. " Our philosopher," as Tyndall calls him, displays a 
most amazing ignorance of the issue in the design argument. 
The issue is not similarity between the cause and the effect in 
any particular, but similarity between two causes, in the one 
essential particular of intelligence. The point in the design 
argument is this: Do certain characteristics of man's works 
prove they had an intelligent cause? Are there the same 
characteristics in the processes of nature ? If there are, do 
not they establish an intelligent cause in one case just as 
they do in the other, and as clearly in one case as in the 
other? Spencer seems to think that he sets the design ar- 
gument to one side when he shows that an unintelligent effect 
had an intelligent cause, and that there is not necessarily 
similarity between an effect and its cause in all particu- 
lars. But the argument is not based on an axiom, '' Effects 
must be like their causes," but *' Like effects must flow from 
similar causes." Again, because an unintelligent effect had 
an intelligent cause, it does not follow that an intelligent 
effect can have an unintelligent cause. An effect may be less 
than its cause, but never greater. An hitelligent cause can 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 293 

produce an unintelligent effect, but an unintelligent cause can 
not produce an intelligent effect, for it can not produce what 
is not potentially in it. 

IV. But our philosopher commits a most egregious blunder 
in his reasoning. He wishes to prove dissimilarity between 
effect and cause, and thus set to one side the design argument. 
We have shown that establishing dissimilarity between cause 
and effect does not affect the argument, for it is based not on 
similarity of cause and effect, but on similarity of two effects, 
which proves that they had similar causes. But if establish- 
ing dissimilarity between cause and effect would set to one side 
the design argument, Spencer has destroyed his own argu- 
ment. He makes the cause and effect he uses similar in the 
very particular necessary to the design argument, and then 
bases his argument on the dissimilarity that he has himself de- 
stroyed. 

V. But our philosopher most blindly yields the very point 
at issue. He himself removes the very dissimilarity he 
wishes to establish. To get np the illustration, he has to as- 
cribe to the watch intelligence, and make it like its maker in 
the very particular in which he wishes to establish dissimilar- 
ity between man and his Creator. As he has to make the 
watch an intelligence, like its maker, to enable it to reason 
concerning its maker, so man, who reasons concerning his 
Creator, is like his Creator in this particular, intelligence. 

VI. As the watch would reason correctly concerning its 
maker, that he was an intelligence like itself, as Spencer 
makes him, so man reasons correctly concerning his Creator, 
that he is like himself, an intelligence. 

VII. All that the watch could legitimately conclude would 
be that its maker was an intelligence, and like himself an in- 
telligence, or like it in this one particular intelligence, and in 
the essential attributes of intelligence. That it was a watch, 
and in organization, and in parts, and in manner of working 
like itself, would be no legitimate part of the conclusion. So 
man legitimately reasons that his Creator is an intelligence, 
and like himself in this particular, intelligence, and in the 
essential attributes of intelligence. That the First Cause is 



294 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

like man in his imperfections and limitations, and that his 
acts are imperfect and limited as man's, is no part of the ar- 
gument. 

VIII. The intelligent watch would see in himself co-ordi- 
nation, adjustment, adaptation, order, method, plan and sys- 
tem. He would, if intelligent, conclude that they imply 
design, purpose and plan, and that design, purpose and plan 
imply an intelligent cause of such design, purpose and plan. 
In all this he would reason correctly. So man would reason 
correctly when he sees co-ordination, adjustment, adaptation, 
order, system and plan, and design, plan and purpose in na- 
ture, and concludes that the cause of all this must be an 
intelligent cause. The only point at issue is. Must the cause 
be an intelHgent cause? Spencer's illustration most clearly 
proves this. 

IX. But we will now go a step further. In the watch- 
in its construction — in the ends it fulfills, there are indicated 
certain mental and moral characteristics of man, its maker. 
If intelligent, as Spencer supposes him to be, the watch would 
see in himself certain attributes of mind, and in his acts evi- 
dences of these attributes of mind. He could recognize in 
the construction of himself the same evidences of the acts 
and operations of mind and evidences of the same attributes 
of mind. He would be justified jn concluding that his maker 
possessed the same intelligence, and attributes of intelligence, 
that he possessed. That his maker was a watch, or in con- 
struction like himself, or in manner of operation like himself, 
or limited and imperfect as himself, would be no part of the 
argument. The logical conclusion would include only that 
he was an intelligence like himself, and possessed the essen- 
tial characteristics of intelligence that the watch possessed ; 
and that his maker was a watch or limited and imperfect like 
the watch, would be no part of it. So man can see certain 
mental attributes in himself. He sees evidences of certain 
mental attributes in his own actions. He sees evidences of 
the same attributes in nature, and evidences of the attributes 
of the cause of nature. He is justified in concluding that 
the First Cause has certain attributes in an infinite degree 



THE THEISTJC SOLUTION. 295 

that he possesses in a finite degree. Similarity in limitation 
and imperfection is no part of the argument. 

The anthropomorphic absurdities that Spencer attaches to 
the argument form no part of it. He attaches to the argu- 
ment foreign absurdities of his own creation to break it down. 
The vital part of the argument, that the palpable evidences 
of design, of mind in the universe, prove the Cause to be an 
Intelligent Cause, and that there are seen palpable evidences 
that he possesses certain attributes of intelligence, such as 
wisdom, volition, love, plan, method and purpose, can not be 
denied, and these anthropomorphic absurdities form no part 
of the argument. 

We have now followed the atheist through every evasion 
and objection, reviewed them, cleared the theistic argument 
of the absurdities that the atheist has attempted to heap 
upon it. We have veiified and justified it, by an appeal to 
our intuitions, to the facts of the universe, and finally to the 
actions and reasonings of the atheists themselves. In our 
reasoning on substance, cause and being, we have reached 
Infinite Mind as the Absolute Cause, Absolute Substance, 
Absolute Being. We have verified our reasonings by an ap- 
peal to consciousness, reason and experience, as accepted by 
common consent of all men, and in the declarations of the 
atheist himself. We run to neither extreme, the extreme of 
nescience, with the materialist, or of transcendentalism, with 
the idealists in rejecting all experience. To the pantheist, 
we say we have more than a world soul. We intuitively 
characterize all acts as voluntary or involuntary. We char- 
acterize the former as good or evil, sinful or righteous, and 
men as sinful or righteous from their conduct. We have 
intuitive ideas of dependence, obligation, responsibility, ac- 
countability, and of rewards and punishments. We intui- 
tively look on events as afiecting us in accordance with these 
ideas. We regard the evil that we sufier from a violation of 
law as a punishment, and the good we enjoy from obedience 
as a reward. This throws them back on Absolute Lawgiver, 
Kuler, Judge, and Executive as Supreme Authority. Design 
and moral desert in us imply free will. Without free will 



296 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

we could not design or purpose in our acts, or have moral 
desert in our acts or character. The same is true of the 
Absolute Cause. But in thinking of God as a free moral 
agent, a free designer and planner, possessing moral attributes, 
we conceive of Him as a person, and sustaining a very dif- 
ferent relation to us from what he sustains to matter or 
material things. 

To talk about a World Soul, an Absolute Reason, that 
attains to consciousness in man alone, is a monstrous absurdity 
and blank atheism. So also all idea of the Absolute Intelli- 
gence or Absolute Intelligent Cause, as a mere principle or 
bundle of principles, bound up in and subject to the eternal 
and necessary laws of matter, is atheism. Through all evo- 
lution, and all existence, we have, in every field of thought, 
passed back to our most rudimental conception of the primor- 
dial constitution of things, and shown, from the first constitu- 
tion of things, that above and anterior to all matter and force, 
and separate and distinct from them, in essence and being, 
Ave have Mind, Absolute Mind, as the ground of all being. 

AVe now propose to show that the atheist repudiates the 
clearest decisions of his own standard of authority, and com- 
mits logical suicide by rejecting his own theory. The funda- 
mental principle of all atheistic philosophy is that we should 
observe and study nature in its ongoings in time-succession, 
as revealed in our own nature and nature at large, as appre- 
hended by our nature, and adapt ourselves to the results of 
such observation and study, and accept and follow nature 
implicity. Then the highest authority is our nature, and the 
whole system is based on the reliability of our nature, and 
the adaptation of nature at large to our nature. Our intui- 
tions and generalized convictions are ultimate truths, and the 
foundation of all reasoning. Then every part of our nature 
has its counterpart in nature at large. 

The evolutionist teaches that every thing existing is the 
result of evolution under a system of all-pervading law. 
This law is his highest authority. The duty of man, and the 
highest wisdom on the part of man, is to learn the ongoings 
of that law, and accept them, and accommodate himself to 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 297 

them. Man is the highest result of that evolution and that 
system of law. His rational, moral and religious nature are 
the highest and crowning product of that system of law, and 
the intuitions of man's moral and religious nature are the 
very highest and noblest expression of this law, the atheist's 
own highest standard. Then by his own system, the atheist 
is bound to accept as the very highest standard of authority, 
and the ultimate test of truth, the intuitions of our moral 
and religious nature. 

Ethnology, history, geography, observation, phrenology, 
and every system of mental philosophy, declare that man, 
all men, have veneration and spirituality. God and spiritual 
existences and things are the proper objects of these faculties, 
so emphatically declare all the above sources. God, spiritual 
existences and things are revealed to us by these highest ele- 
ments of our nature. This intuition of God, religious wor- 
ship, and spiritual life and existences, and morality is, then, a 
fundamental truth, the basis truth of our highest nature and 
all nature. This intuition has an answering counterpart in 
nature. There is a God : so declares the highest standard of 
the atheist. The atheist is the last one who should deny this 
universal affirmation of all reason, for it is his ultimate stand- 
ard. He should accept, as the very highest authority, this 
intuition, this catholic affirmation of universal reason. 

Man is a worshiping being. Veneration and spirituality 
declare him to be such, and make him such. Man, in all 
ages, lands, nations, conditions, races and tribes, has had, and 
has the idea of God and systems of worship. Man is as 
essentially a worshiping being, a religious being, as he is a 
rational or a social being. It is as natural for man to 
worship as it is for him to reason or associate with his fellow- 
men. 

Late research has demonstrated that no race or tribe of 
men exist, or ever has existed, that has been so degraded as 
to have no system of religion. The Australian, the Bushman, 
and the Digger Indian, who have been cited as tribes destitute 
of all religious ideas, have been shown, by later and more 
careful examinations, to have systems of superstitions and 



298 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ideas of future life. Indeed, such can be proved in most 
cases by the writers who testify that they are destitute of re- 
ligious ideas. They have superstitious, the imperfect display 
or a religious nature. Even deaf mutes have the idea of 
God, caused by intuitions of dependence, infinity and causa- 
tion. A most noted instance of this is the case of Steenrood, 
given by Alexander Campbell, in his famous debate with 
Owen, to prove the opposite position. He believed that the 
sun created all things and governed them, or he made him 
an intelligent cause, ruler, and God. 

In times of danger and trial, when man acts instinctively 
and true to his nature and its intuitions, he acts as though 
there is a God. No man is an atheist at such times. He 
feels his need of God, his nature declares there is one, and 
he prays. Then, if the position of the atheist be true, man's 
desires, aspirations and intuitions have an answering counter- 
part in nature, and there is a God. Man's reason and his 
intuitions, the highest expression of the atheist's highest stand- 
ard, declare there is a God. Man desires the existence of a 
God, and intuitively acts as though there is one. Man needs 
God as an object of worship, to accomplish the object of his 
being. He is a worshiping being. He becomes like the 
being he worships. His religion — his object of worship — 
decides for him, above all else combined, morality and duty. 
His reason and conscience are controlled by his religion. 
Religion is the regnant element in man's nature, the regula- 
tive and fundamental formative principle in life, character 
and conduct. Man needs religion and the worship of God 
as a dynamic lifting force and power in life and conduct, 
originating progress, starting man upward in development, sus- 
taining and controlling him in it, and continually directing 
his aspirations higher. Man needs God as an object of adora- 
tion, as an object of aspiration, as a model. Man's faculties, 
desires, needs, intuitions, instincts and conduct, alike declare 
there is a God. Atheists contradict and repudiate their own 
ultimate standard of authority — human reason, for that has 
ever declared that there is a God. 

Man is capable of indefinite cultivation and progress. He 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 299 

is elevated by faith and devotion to an exalted object of such 
feelings, above all other influences, and especially by religious 
faith and devotion to a pure object of worship. Religious en- 
thusiasm has ever been the originating and animating princi- 
ple, and the controlling power in all great revolutions and 
reformations, and all human progress. Man needs a standard 
of absolute authority and perfect wisdom, love, and right, to 
give him perfect religious faith and devotion. All this can 
be done only by the worship of an absolutely perfect and holy 
God. If our nature be reliable, there is sjicli a being to meet 
this intuition and need of our nature, and holding atheists to 
their own standard, there is a God to meet this intuition and 
want of our nature. The evolutionist holds, that all that 
now exists is the result of a course of evolution, controlled 
by law, and deifies this law that has produced so consistent, 
exact and systematic results; and teaches that to learn this 
law, and implicitly accept its results as our highest standard, 
is the final result of all thought and science. Man is the 
highest product of this evolution and law of evolution. 
His rational, moral and religious nature, are the crowning re- 
sult. The intuitions of his religious, moral and rational 
nature, are the highest expression of this law of evolution. 
All else should be interpreted by them, and in accordance 
with them. They, according to the atheist himself, are the 
very highest standard in the world. These have invaria- 
bly given God, religion, worship and the catholic ideas of 
religion. 

Quatrefages, the greatest living ethnologist, and himself a 
rationalist, declares that these ideas of religion and morality 
and future life, are man's distinctive characteristics, and that 
nien are not atheists naturally, but in violation of nature, 
just as men are not suicides naturally, but in violation of 
nature. These great religious ideas are the crown, the ulti- 
mate of this course of evolution, and the highest declaration 
of that law of evolution that the atheist deifies. Then, when 
he rejects these ideas, he rejects his own standard, reason, for 
they are its highest result and regnant principle; and the 
highest result of the course of evolution for which he con 



300 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

tends, and the highest expression of the all-pervading law of 
evolution. If they are not true, man's nature is a cheat, evo- 
lution a monstrous fraud, and not under law at all, and this 
pretended law of evolution is as false as the myths of the 
most absurd theology. If our nature be a valid basis for 
reasoning, and a reliable means of reasoning; and if evolution 
be consistent and according to law, then these ideas are ac- 
cording to the law of the universe, and are its highest expres- 
sion, and should be accepted as the highest standard in the 
universe. Then lihe atheist commits high treason against his 
own highest authority, and dethrones his own highest law. 

The idea of God is in the human mind. It came by one 
of these sources : 

I. By an immediate intuition. 

II. An universal affirmation of reason, after a course of 
reasoning. 

III. By revelation. If it came from either source, we are 
bound to accept its truth. If either of the first two sources 
gave it, the atheist is bound to accept it, or reject his own 
standard, human reason. Even if we admit that imagination 
has constructed the character of God, or man's conception of 
his attributes, intuition must have given the basis idea, the 
idea of his existence or being. From what the mind cog- 
nized in his works, from what it apprehended as the charac- 
teristics of his works, it must have also intuited the idea of 
each attribute, the basis or germ idea. These are simple, 
uncompounded, original ideas of reason. Imagination can not 
originate such an idea. The germ or root idea, the basis, 
must be furnished to imagination by consciousness, intuition, 
sensation or revelation. Then intuition must have given the 
germ, the original idea, the basis idea of God's existence, 
and of each attribute. Imagination, which is merely a con- 
structive faculty, combining the materials furnished by con- 
sciousness, intuition, sensation or revelation, has Splayed fan- 
tastic tricks with the character of God, with his attributes ; 
but the basis idea of his being, and the basis idea of each at- 
tribute, it never gave. The absolute necessity for intelligent 
causation to account for the universe and its phenomena, is 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 301 

seen in the speculations of the atheist himself, even while at- 
tempting to destroy all such ideas, and in which he supposes 
he does away with such ideas. The existence of the religious 
element in his nature, is demonstrated by his conduct. The 
atheist makes a God of matter, or of matter and force. He 
ascribes to matter self-existence, self-sustenance, independence 
and eternity of being, and makes it the necessary being, and 
uncaused, unconditioned, and absolute in being. In so doing 
he ascribes to it the very attributes of God that are most 
difficult of conception, and the very attributes that he pro- 
tests that he can not accept in the idea of God. He gives to 
laws of nature, or the nature of things, every attribute of the 
Divine being. 

It is utterly impossible for the atheist to reason on the pri- 
mordial constitution of things without giving to matter and 
force all the attributes of God, and the very ones that he 
objects to, and refuses to accept, and protests that he can not 
comprehend, or believe, in the idea of God. Not only so, 
but he must interpolate at every step of the path of evolu- 
tion, from beginning to end, what can be attributed to mind 
alone. He deifies matter and force at the beginning, and 
continues his apotheosis until he reaches the last step in evo- 
lution, and then assumes for matter and force eternal divinity 
and deity, in oncoming eternity. He invariably and even 
unwillingly makes an intelligent cause out of matter and 
force. The inexorable necessity and emergencies of his rea- 
soning compel him to do so. This is sufficient to demonstrate 
that we are compelled, by the very nature and constitution of 
our thinking, to make the ground and beginning of all being 
an intelligent cause, or to violate such nature and constitution 
by ascribing to matter and force what inhere in mind alone, 
and then repeat the absurdity at every step, in our course of 
reasoning, by interpolating intelligence until we have made a 
God of matter and force and of the course of evolution. 
Comte, and all French atheists, have exhibited the religious 
intuition in their lives. Comte fabricated quite an elaborate 
system of atlieistic religious ceremonies. He emptied the 
sacramental cup of the wine of the real presence, and then 



302 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

worshiped the cup. French atheism, in both revolutions, 
showed clearly the outcroppings of this ineradicable intuition. 
Spiritualism takes like a contagion among atheists. The 
Owens, Prof. Hare, and many eminent atheists, are notable 
examples of this. All this demonstrates that man is a relig- 
ious being, has a religious element in his nature, and that he 
will have a religion and a God. 

Two classes of persons have denied that man is constitu- 
tionally and intuitively a worshiping being, and for exactly 
opposite purposes. The atheist denies it to disprove the idea 
and the existence of God. Man, he claims, is naturally and 
intuitively an atheistic being, hence reason declares that there 
is no God. Certain theists assert that without revelation man 
would have no idea of God. The idea is in the world, hence 
God exists, and has revealed himself, and thus given rise to the 
idea. While intending to demonstrate the existence of God, 
and the necessity of revelation, and the reality of revelation, it 
is one of those suicidal arguments that destroys only the cause 
it is intended to aid. No man can take such a position and 
avoid being hoisted by his own petard. Had the late Alex- 
ander Campbell met in Owen a shrewd reasoner, his fundamen- 
tal position would have been retorted with fatal force against 
the existence of spirit, the immortality of spirit, the existence 
of God, and against human freedom and responsibility, and all 
religion, worship and morality. If his position be true, all 
these things are myths, and utterly foreign to man's nature 
and reason. His brethren have accepted, and now retain, this 
position, because it was wielded with such effect against Owen. 
But some of them have learned since that when presented to 
other skeptics it is but a club that is wrested out of their 
hands, and used to beat out their own brains. The true po- 
sition is, that man is constitutionally a religious, a worshiping 
being, and that the religious element of man's nature will 
necessarily exhibit itself in systems of religion and acts of 
worshi}>. The Scriptures clearly so teach in Psalm xix. and 
Romans i. and ii., especially the twentieth verse of the first 
chapter. Man needs revelation to give him a correct idea of 
God, of his moral attributes, and of his own duty to God, 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 303 

to his fellow-men, and to himself. Such a position agrees 
with human experience, reason and revelation. 

Atheists, and the class of theists just mentioned, have 
claimed that certain tribes Avere atheists, and that deaf mutes 
are also. The cases they bring forward are not fair tests of 
the capabilities of human nature. One class is the lowest 
and most degraded of our race, and by the same course of 
reasoning I can prove that the whole race is incapable of 
civilization. The other class is deprived of one of the prin- 
cipal avenues of knowledge, and of all means of acquiring 
moral and religious ideas from their fellow-men. But the 
assumption in both cases is utterly untenable. The author 
pledges himself to give the form of religion of every supposed 
atheistic tribe. Several reasons have led to such a mistake. 
Travelers have presented to the savages, in their queries, theo- 
logical speculations, and have mistaken ignorance of their 
metaphysics for ignorance of all religious ideas. They have 
been ignorant of the language of the savages, and neither 
party understood the other. Lack of ceremonial forms of 
worship, or of prayer, or temples, or of an order of priesthood, 
have all led travelers to such a conclusion. In this way it 
has been asserted by Lubbock and others that the Digger In- 
dians, the Australians, the Bushmen or Bechuanas of South 
Africa, the Arafuros of the Pacific Ocean, and certain tribes 
in the deserts of Arabia, are without any religious ideas or 
idea of God. Other and better informed writers clearly 
prove the contrary. The Digger Indians have idols and sac- 
rifices, and quite an elaborate system of superstition and ideas 
of a future life. The Bechuanas, and every tribe of them, have 
ideas of a Supreme Being, and of creation, and quite extensive 
religious ideas. So have the Arafuros and the Bedouins of 
the desert of Arabia. A more unfounded assertion was never 
made than that man has ever been found an atheist, except 
a few persons in civilized countries, who reached such a con- 
clusion by a perversion or strangulation of their nature, just 
as the hermit and suicide pervert or destroy their nature. 
Even deaf mutes have ideas of Intelligent Causation, origi- 
nating in their intuitions of infinity, dependence and cans* 



304 THE PKOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ation, as was clearly established by the testimony of Steenrood, 
used by Mr. Campbell in his debate with Owen to establish 
the contrary. 

All intuitions are rudimental in savages and children, and 
they act on them before they can express them, or formulate 
them. Millions of men, in civilized nations, act on intuitions 
when they can not formulate them, but it is certainly an ab- 
surdity to deny that they have their intuitions on which they 
act all their lives, because they can not express them in the 
dialect of the schools. Among savages society is rude and 
tribal, or in isolated families. It is selfish, jealous and cast- 
like. Marriage is lust and polygamy. Self-defense is war- 
fare, rapine and blood-shed. Love of property is robbery 
and violence. Religion is superstition and idolatry. Spirit- 
uality is fear, dread and superstition. But in all this error 
and perversion there is a substratum or truth. The basis 
idea, the intuition is there, and is correct and the basis of 
correct development. All these intuitions have proper ob- 
jects, and are intuitions perverted. It is in this sense that 
we say that man is a social being — that he loves society, 
wealth, power, wife, children, country and his fellows. We 
say these feelings are natural to man. It is in precisely the 
same sense that we say that man is a religious being. Men 
have said that certain tribes had no idea of God, meaning 
that they had not a correct idea of God — had not a knowledge 
of the God of revelation, or of as perfect a being as He. In 
precisely the same way it has been said that certain tribes 
have no families or wives or love of children, no idea of prop- 
erty, no society or form of government. Yet we find in all of 
them, men and women associating together, fathers and moth- 
ers and children, and these living together, and personal prop- 
erty in dress and implements, and also leaders and associa- 
tion. The basis idea is there, but rude and undeveloped, and 
perhaps perverted, but it exists and can not be eradicated. 
In the same sense we say man is a religious being. He al- 
ways has religious ideas, worship and superstition. The basis 
idea is there. If this were not the case, a revelation of re- 
ligion would be utterly impossible. If there be in the human 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 305 

mind no sentiment or intuition to winch revelation appeals, 
no foundation on which revelation is based, religion and reve- 
lation would be as impossible in man's case as in that of the 
brute. One of the essential and chief differences between man 
and the brute is that man is a worshiping, a religious being, 
intuitively and necessarily so. Atheism strives to remove 
this difference, and reduce man so much nearer the brute, 
from which it claims he had his origin, but the sentiment can 
not be eradicated. The brute is absolutely without this ele- 
ment in his nature, and it can not be implanted within or 
engrafted upon his nature, nor can he be made to display 
the slightest manifestation of its presence. As the atheist 
proves man to ])e an irreligious being, we can prove him to 
be an irrational being. Men pervert or deny the plainest de- 
cisions of reason as well as their religious nature. Then 
taking human nature as our standard, we must accept the idea 
of God as a fundamental idea of all thought. 

We now propose to show that the atheist, in his reasoning 
on the course of development, is compelled to violate all rea- 
son and thought, and his own ultimate standard of investiga- 
tion and authority ; and that we are driven to the conclusion 
that the universe had an intelligent cause, from the infinitely 
greater difficulty of conceiving how the universe came into 
being without such a cause. The atheist has to assume the 
eternity of matter. In so doing he ascribes to it self- existence, 
independence, self-sustenance and eternity, the very attributes 
of Deity that are most difficult of conception, and the very at- 
tributes of Deity that the atheist protests that he can not ac- 
cept or understand — of which he can not have even a concep- 
tion. When we have accepted these attributes of Deity, all 
the rest is comparatively easy. It is infinitely the easier, and 
infinitely the more rational, to accept the eternity, self-exist- 
ence, independence and self-sustenance of mind, that we are 
conscious is superior to matter, and that we see controlling mat- 
ter, and using it for its own purpose, proving that matter was 
made for mind, and not mind for matter. If we accept the 
latter, an infinitely easier and more rational alternative, we 

26 



306 THE TROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

hsLYQ sufficient ground for all subsequent being, and all diffi- 
culty vanishes. 

But when the atheist has made this assumption, he hag 
only chaos, without law, order, property, or principle. He 
has to assume the eternity, independence, and self-existence 
and self-sustenance of the essential properties or forces of 
matter, attraction, adhesion, cohesion, repulsion, chemical 
action, affinity, and crystallization. This only gives a fortui- 
tous concourse of atoms, a turbulent chaos. Then he has to 
assume that these forces were eternally spontaneously active, 
and assume tlie self-existence, eternity, independence and self- 
sustenance of laws for the proportion of elementary sub- 
stances, their number for chemical action and affinity, the 
selection of some and rejection of others, laws of proportion 
as to how they shall unite to form the almost infinite variety 
of compounds in existence, laws for ciiange of form by heat 
and chemical action, laws for exact and most beautiful and 
Avonderful geometrical forms and propoj'tions in crystallization. 
In so doing, he violates every principle of reason, for reason 
declares that these results, in which are realized the highest 
conceptions of reason, can be accomplished only by the action 
of thinking, planning, selecting, reason or mind. Then he 
has to assume the eternity, self-existence, independence and 
self-sustenance, and the spontaneous activity of these forces, 
essential properties and laws, and their co-ordination and or- 
derly arrangement and adaptation and adjustment to each 
other and subsequent results, in exact matliematical order 
and proportion, as to how, when, where, how long, how often, 
in what order of succession, and with what power they shall 
act. Again, he violates every principle of reason, for reason 
declares that all these results, in which are realized the very 
highest conceptions of reason, can only be produced by a pre- 
existent mind, acting on a plan, with prevision of, and provi- 
sion for, coming existences and results. As we have several 
times shown, all these phenomena, facts, and principles, that 
must have entered into the very first constitution of things, 
the primordial constitution of matter and force, prove matter 
and force to bo manufiictured articles, subordinate agents, the 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 307 

products of mind. This disproves the self-existence of matter 
and force, and establishes the pre-existence of mind, anterior 
to the primordial constitution of matter and force, to give to 
them this first constitution. 

Then he has to assume the eternity, self-existence, inde- 
pendence, self-sustenance and spontaneous activity of laws for 
the harmonious adjustment of forms, distances, and orbits of 
the heavenly bodies and systems, and also for the orderly 
aiTangement of their densities, distances, motions, velocities, 
and relative masses, in exact mathematical proportion and 
law, and geometrical form, proportion and law. Either this 
is eternal, self-existent, independent, self-sustaining and spon- 
taneous, or blind, irrational matter and force evolved all this. 
In either case, he violates every law of our thinking, for rea- 
son declares that all this, in which the highest conceptions 
of pure reason are realized, must be the act of reason, acting 
on a plan, with method, system and forethought. Notwith- 
standing all the infinite assumptions that we have already 
pointed out, we have only mineral ^compounds and chemical 
combinations. Next we have to assume the eternity, self- 
existence, independence, self-sustenance, and spontaneous ac 
tivity of vital force, as seen in vegetable life, growth, and 
reproduction. It is eternal, or whence came it? No chem- 
istry can produce it, or evolve it out of matter and force, or 
lay hold of it and analyze it. Also, whence came vegetable 
forms, types, and varieties, and their adjustments and adapta- 
tions to each other and surroundings? Reason declares that 
all this came from the action of a mind acting on an all-per- 
vading, all-controlling plan, and that had prepared these 
forces and influences, and adjusted them and adapted them 
to these ends. In all these, the very highest conceptions of 
order, system, beauty and beneficence, the very highest con- 
ceptions of reason, are realized; and common sense utterly 
refuses to believe that irrational matter and force evolved all 
this, which has its only conceivable ground in mind. Next 
we have to assume the eternity, self-existence^ independence, 
self-sustenance and spontaneity of animal life, sensation and 
instinct, as seen in animal life, growth, and reproduction. It 



308 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

is eternal, or whence came it? No chemistry, or combination 
or modification of matter and force can produce it, or evolve 
it out of inorganic matter, or vegetable matter and life. We 
have to assume, also, the eternity and spontaneous activity of 
the laws of forms, types, organiaations and species of animal 
life, and the adjustment of all nature and vegetable life to 
animals, and the adaptation and adjustment of all physical 
forces to them, and their adaptation and adjustment to con- 
ditions. The laws for all this are eternal, self-existent, inde- 
pendent, self-sustaining and spontaneously active, or whence 
came they? 

The theory of the evolution of animal life, sensation and 
instinct, by insensate, irrational matter and force, or by chem- 
ical action, or vegetable life or organization, is utter non- 
sense ; for if they are not inherently and eternally in mat- 
ter and force, they can not be evolved out of it. The theory 
of the production of all varieties of animal and vegetable life, 
by unconscious selection is unconscious nonsense, for the term 
itself is a palpable contradiction, for selection can be per- 
formed only by conscious intelligence. So is the theory that 
animals adapted themselves to conditions. Either conditions 
were adapted to animal at first, or they were not. If adapted 
at first, then the theory of adaptation by unconscious selection 
is a myth, and tl^ question arises in a moment, Who adapted 
them? and theism is unavoidable. If not adapted, how did 
they exist in inadapted conditions until adapted ? This theory 
makes destructive agencies perform the work of constructive 
agencies. Common sense says all this, in which we see real- 
ized the highest conceptions of reason in co-ordination, adjust- 
ment and adaptation, into order, system, and method, exhib- 
iting plan, design, purpose, and prevision of, and provision 
for, subsequent existences, in accordance with the ideas and 
laws of highest reason, is the work of thought, reason, mind. 

Notwithstanding all the infinite assumptions we have passed 
through, we have no rational life, mind, or spirit. The crown- 
ing existence of the universe is wanting. The atheist has 
either to have mind, reason, and spirit, evolved by blind, ir- 
rational matter and force destitute of them, which violates 



THE THEISTIC SOJ.UTION. 309 

his fundamental principle, " Out of nothing, nothing comes," 
or he has finally to admit the eternity, self-existence, inde- 
pendence and self-sustenance of life principle capable of rea- 
son, thought, and moral action; in other words, the eternity, 
self-existence, independence, and self-sustenance of mind or 
spirit in some form, the very thing he especially wishes to 
avoid. There is no evading the question. It is .eternal, or 
whence came it? It is an insult to common sense to assure 
us that it is the blind, irrational force seen in insensate mat- 
ter, modified by organization of insensate matter. Even if 
this were the oase, whence came this w^onderful organization 
of matter that can, as an infidel rhapsodist declares, change a 
cabbage into a divine tragedy of Hamlet? Naught but in- 
telligence, infinite intelligence, can produce such a wonderful 
organization of insensate matter as that capable of producing 
such an infinite result, as such a modification of blind, irra- 
tional force would be. The atheist, in attempting to account for 
reason and thought, tells us that they are but different manifes- 
tations of the same force seen in inorganic matter, changed 
into reason and thought by that wonderful organization of 
matter, our body, or its organs. When we ask, whence came 
so wonderful an organization of insensate, inorganic matter? he 
tells us that this very irrational force, that is so wonderfully 
modified by matter, produces the very organization that pro- 
duces the wonderful modification of force. A more absurd 
confusion of cause and effect, and a more absurd case of argu- 
ing in a circle, was never seen. Such an utter abnegation of 
all sense was never before dubbed with the high sounding ap- 
pellation, practical knowledge or practical science. 

Let us strip the question of every evasion and subterfuge, 
and face the naked issue. Which is rational, to believe that 
this wonderful existence, human reason, mind, spirit, and the 
ascending scale of being beneath, which exhibits in its very 
primordial constitution, and at every step of the ascent realized 
the most exalted conceptions of reason, is the product of 
mind or reason, or to believe that there is mind or reason in 
minerals and earths, waiting for organization of insensate 
matter to develop it ? or to believe that insensate matter and 



310 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

irrational force evolve what is absolutely not intliem? One of 
the three positions we must accept. Can we believe that reason, 
emotion, thought, and volition are modes of the same force as 
that which whirls the dust before it, or burns in the brand, 
or flashes in the cloud ? If reason or mind was not eternally 
present in matter, whence came it when it does appear ? 
NVhence came the organization that develops it, or modifies 
the one force of nature, if it has been eternally present, and 
waiting for means of development, or is merely this one force 
modified by organization of matter? Reason declares that 
this development, these means of development, this organiza- 
tion, can only have resulted from origination, direction, and 
control of a pre-existing mind, acting on a plan with this re- 
sult before it as an end. Hence, after all this monstrous and 
contradictory assuming, to avoid accepting the existence of 
mind, we have to accept at last the eternity, self-existence, 
independence, and self-sustenance of mind, the very thing we 
have been trying to evade. Not only so, but we have to 
place mind anterior to, and above matter and force, and this 
course of development, by which the materialist strives to ac- 
count for mind, to originate, control, and direct it, to co-or- 
dinate, adapt, and adjust blind, irrational matter and force, 
and so control them as to secure this result. The materialist 
violates every principle of reason unless he does this, and 
after doing this, he commits logical suicide, by accepting at 
last the very thing he set out to evade — the self-existence 
and eternity of mind. Then, though there are mysteries con- 
nected with the thought, the only rational course is to believe 
the eternity and self-existence of mind, and mind alone. If 
we take this position, we have sufficient ground for all being, 
and all that exists has a rational explanation. But when we 
make irrational matter and force eternal, self-existent, inde- 
pendent, self-sustaining, and spontaneously active, and the only 
ground of all being and development, we begin with an as- 
sumption in violation of all reason, and we have to make as- 
sumptions of like character all along the course of develop- 
ment. In one case we have the inexplicable it may be, but 
still it it is perfectly rational. In the other, we have incon- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 311 

ceivably more that is inexplicable, and the absurd contradic- 
tory and impossible. 

Even when the atheist has done all this monstrous assum- 
ing he has not the present order of things, unless he assigns 
to mind control over matter and force, to originate, direct and 
regulate this almost infinite course and series of development, 
during the almost infinite period he claims for it. Then the 
provisions, ages before their existence, for coming existences, 
the removal of lower types and the substitution of higher, as 
the earth became unfitted for the lower and fitted for the 
higher, and the continual and connected providence demand- 
ed by the orderly development, in accordance with law, de- 
monstrates the pre-existence of mind. So does the declaration 
of geology, that each species existed in its greatest perfection 
at the commencement of its existence, from direct creation. 
There is not a particle of evidence of transitional forms, or 
of transmutation of species, or of bridging over the chasms 
between species. All talk of it is bald assumption, unsus- 
tained by a single fact. Every species produces after its kind, 
and has ever done so during all geologic epochs, as well as 
during human history. Varieties may be produced, but nev- 
er a new species by mere conditions. Darwin admits that the 
genesis of a new species by mere matter and force, or the op" 
eration of conditions of matter and force, is unknown in hu- 
man experience or knowledge ; and not one particle of evi- 
dence, that such a thing has actually transpired, can be found 
in historic or geologic testimony. . Species never hybridize ; 
and there is not an instance can be cited of a single species 
that ever passed up into a higher species, in the ascending 
chain of being. Not a single fact adequate to a single assump- 
tion, in the atheistic theory of development, has ever been 
found. It is all assumption, in the face of reason, experience 
and possibility. 

Either all life and spirit was eternally buried in matter, 
and existed either really or potentially in matter eternally, or 
it existed eternally above and distinct from matter. The latter 
position is theism, the former atheism. If all life was originally 
in a cell or germ, then all possibilities of life must have been 



312 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

there also, or whence come differentiation, selection, and dif- 
ference in development ? If difference of conditions occa- 
sioned the difference of development, then there n\ust have 
been in each germ power of adaptation to all conditions nec- 
essary to produce all that has been developed. This makes a 
God out of each germ ; for it places in each germ all possibil- 
ities of all life, and power of adaptability to all conditious. 
If difference of life existed in each germ, or different condi- 
tions surrounded different germs in the primordial constitution 
of things, whence came these differences ? If the same life, 
with all possibilities of life, existed in each germ, whence 
come this omnipotent life, and whence came these different 
conditions, and wlience came this omnipotent adaptability to 
all conditions ? If different possibilities of life, and different 
conditions existed in and around different germs, whence come 
these differences, and, above all, the adaptations of these dif- 
ferent conditions to these differences of life? Then all possi- 
bilities of life and adaptation to all conditions must have been 
in each germ. Not only so, but possibilities and adaptations ; 
so that two beings of different sexes must be produced at the 
same time and in the same place — at least once in the course 
of development — out of that which has no sex, but contains 
that which has sex. If there be a great many lines of descent^ 
this must have transpired as many times as there are lines of 
descent. There must be produced, whenever a variation oc- 
curs in the course of development, at least two possessing the 
same variation and of different sex, at the same time and in 
the same place, and they must associate with each other, and 
their descendants with each other. If this does not transpire, 
the law of heredity would remove, instead of perpetuating, the 
variation. This makes each germ omnipotent and a god, to 
begin with ; and the course of development requires plan, co- 
ordination, adjustment, adaptation and prescience, before the 
first constitution of things, and intelligent control and direc- 
tion during the entire course. 

Intelligence can not be evolved out of matter and force, des- 
titute of intelligence, if the atheistic maxim, " Out of nothing 
nothing comes," be true. Tyndall's late speech at Belfast was 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 313 

an open confession of this. But even if it could be thus evol- 
ved, the previous course of development, before its evolution, 
would require the pre-existence of mind before the commence- 
ment of the development, to originate, plan, control and di- 
rect it. Then if intelligence can not be evolved out of mat- 
ter and force destitute of intelligence, we have to take 
the absurd position that all matter is endued, potentially at 
least, with intelligence. If each particle of matter is endued 
with plastic life, (life capable of being molded by conditions 
into all possibilities of existence,) and with all the conditions 
necessary to produce the infinite varieties of life we now 
see, although we have made a god of each particle of mat- 
ter, there still remains the query of queries, " Who origina- 
ted, adjusted, controlled and directed the development?" 
The long, harmonious and orderly course of development, in 
accordance with the law expressing the highest ideas of rea- 
son, requires co-ordination, adjustment, plan, control and 
providence, with foreknowledge of results. These can have 
their only conceivable ground in Pre-existent Mind. Hence, 
take what hypothesis of atheism we will, we are driven at 
once to self-existence of mind, and to Intelligent Absolute 
Cause, unless we deny and stultify every principle of reason. 
The atheist begins by assuming the eternity, self-existence, 
independence, self-sustenance and spontaneous activity of mat- 
ter and force, and, in so doing, gives to them all the attri- 
butes of God that are difficult of apprehension, and then 
keeps on adding to their properties and powers, until he has 
ascribed to them every attribute of God, and then he has to 
stultify all reason, unless he places Self-existent Mind anter- 
ior to the first constitution of matter and force, to give to 
them this constitution. 

If consistent and logical the atheist must not only deny the 
existence of God, intelligent causati(m, indeed, all causation 
and immortality; but he must also deny all freedom, volition, 
good and evil, responsibility, obligation, reward and punish- 
ment, accountability, moral desert, righteousness and justice. 
He has no place for such ideas or qualities, or the evolution 
of such ideas or qualities in his system of blind, insensate 
27 



314 THE PKOBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

matter, and blind, irrational force. They are not in irrational 
matter and force ; and change matter and force as much as 
you can, you can not evolve out of them what was not in 
them, hence by evolution they can not be made to have these 
qualities. If all things were once potentially in irrational 
matter and force, there is no such thing as these qualities in 
the universe, for these qualities could not be there either actu- 
ally or potentially. Then whence do they come, whence do 
they appear ? There is but one alternative, and that is to deny 
the reality and existence, as all consistent atheists do. As 
these are primitive ideas of our nature, and as all primitive 
ideas are the basis of all reasoning and life, if these ideas are 
not real, our nature is false, and all search after knowledge, 
even the knowledge accepted by the atheist, is a chimera, and 
all reasoning is folly, and its conclusions the delusive phan- 
tasms of a lying, cheating nature. The atheist accepts the 
intuitions of absolute space and duration, and absolute being 
and power of independence and sustenance in matter and 
force, and bases all his reasoning on these intuitions. Intui- 
tion as clearly and positively gives us absolute mind, immor- 
tality and retribution, here and hereafter, and infinite, moral 
government. Why does the atheist reject these intuitions 
when he implicitly accepts the others, and basis all reasoning 
on them ? Why accept half of what his ultimate standard, 
human reason, gives him, and rejects the other half? Is it 
not because in the former there is no lawgiver, ruler, judge, 
responsibility, retribution or government, and there is in the 
latter? Why will the atheist accept every thing absolute and 
infinite in the universe, and every thing in nature except God 
and what is inseparably connected with that idea? Why 
does he stultify reason and commit logical suicide, whenever 
he even suspects any connection with that idea ? Is it not 
because there is law, government and .restraint in the idea ? 
Is not the wish father to the thought, and the desire parent 
of the conclusion ? The Psalmist uttered a profound truth 
when he said, "The fool has said in his heart. There is no 
Go J." Atheism is a sin of the heart and not an error of the 
he .id. 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 315 

If the atheist accepts or claims the ideas of character and 
morality, good and evil, he must admit the eternal existence 
of mind or free personality, Avith freedom of volition and ac- 
tion. Character, morality, good and evil, can inhere only in 
free personality or mind, with freedom of volition and action. 
Then, if mind or free personality, with freedom of volition 
and action, is not eternal, there was a time when it did not 
exist, and every thing then was without moral quality or 
character. Matter and force, or that which has no quality or 
character or moral nature, alone existed. Matter and force 
without moral nature, quality or character, can not evolve 
what is not in them. Hence, if mind has not existed forever, 
good and evil and moral nature, quality and character, are a 
chimera. Atheism gives us no morality or possible basis for 
morality, and renders morality and character an impossibility. 
Such terms, if used by it, are a fraud and a cheat. If it 
really accepts such terms, it must accept the eternal exist- 
ence of mind. We are aware that in the belief in the exist- 
ence of absolute mind or personality, as the absolute cause 
and beginning of all being, there is the incomprehensible and 
the inexplicable ; but there is not the absurd, contradictory 
and impossible. We can apprehend the existence of these 
things, and know that they exist, and that they do not con- 
tradict reason, that they accord with it, although we can not 
comprehend how they exist as they do, and why they exist 
as they do. 

But in rushing to the opposite extreme of atheism, we 
have not only infinitely more of the incomprehensible and 
inexplicable, but we have also the absurd, the contradictory 
and the impossible, and at last have to repudiate reason, the 
only standard the atheist professes to accept. If we take as 
our standard our nature, our rational, moral and religious 
nature, with its intuitions, we must accept absolute mind as 
the beginning of all being, the absolute, the uncaused and 
unconditioned, and the ground and summation of all causa- 
tion, condition and being. 

We dismiss our examination of atheism with this alterna- 
tive : we must either believe that matter and force, blind, in- 



316 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

sensate matter, and blind, irrational force, are eternal, self- 
existent, independent, self-sustaining and spontaneously active, 
and thus give to them all the attributes of God that are 
difficult of apprehension, and the very attributes that the 
atheist refuse to accept in the being of God, and pretends he 
can not even apprehend, or we must believe that mind is 
eternal, self-existent, independent, self-sustaining and sponta- 
neously active. Now, we submit it to the reason and common 
sense of every person of sense, which is the more rational 
and the easier to believe: That blind, insensate matter, and 
blind, irrational force are eternal, self-existent, independent, 
self-sustaining and spontaneously active, and act in accordance 
Avith the highest ideas of reason, while utterly destitute of 
reason, and that all the wonderful and infinitely varied forms 
of existence in the universe, with all their wonderful and in- 
finitely varied adaptations and adjustments and evidences of 
infinitely wise plan, law, and design, in which are realized the 
most exalted conceptions of reason, spring into existence with- 
out reason or intelligence, that originated and controlled this 
wonderful development for their infinitely wise and beneficent 
ends, and, above all, that mind was evolved out of matter and 
force, utterly devoid of all mind, reason or intelligence, and 
without an originator and controller of such infinitely won- 
derful evolution ; or to believe that mind, which controls 
and uses matter for its own purposes, and for which matter 
was made and exists, and is so superior to matter, is eternal, 
self-existent, independent, self-sustaining and spontaneously 
active, and acts in accordance with law and the highest ideas 
of reason, and that mind originated, controlled and sustained 
this development, adjustment, adaptation and plan, in which 
are realized the most exalted conceptions of reason for these 
infinitely wise, beautiful and beneficent ends? If our faith be 
weak, why take the infinitely harder side ? Why attempt to 
believe in utter stultification of all reason, not only the in- 
explicable, but the absurd, the contradictory, and the im- 
possible ? 

We can not believe that matter and force are eternal, self- 
existent, independent, self-sustaining and spontaneously ac- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 317 

tlve; that they existed before mind and evolved it, or that 
they eternally co-existed with mind for these reasons: 

I. Matter and physical force are inferior in being, charac- 
teristics and manifestations to mind. The evolutionist admits 
these when he makes mind the highest result or product of 
evolution and places it at the apex and above all being but 
itself. 

II. There must be spontaneity, spontaneous activity and 
action in the cause of the development claimed by the evolu- 
tionist. Matter is inert and passive, and not a cause, but an 
instrument in the action of a cause. There is no spontaneity, 
no spontaneous activity in matter or mere physical force. 
Above all, these is no regulating or controlling power over 
their action in matter and force. Then neither matter nor 
physical force are agents or spontaneous, self-active, efficient 
causes. Above all, they are not self-regulating, self-control- 
ling causes, such as must have produced this evolution. 

III. Neither matter nor physical force ever act in the 
proper sense of the word. Matter moves when acted upon. 
Force is an exercise of power by an agent, and is itself an 
act. The only real and proper action in the universe is that 
of mind ; and all accommodated applications of the terms ac- 
tion and cause, when applied to matter and physical force, 
can be traced back to mind as their only source, a spontane- 
ous, self-active, efficient cause. 

IV. Matter and physical force are the servants of mind. 
So the evolutionist admits when he makes mind the highest 
product of evolution and places all else below mind. 

V. The primordial constitution of matter and force is such 
that it could not have come into being or existed at all un- 
less mind existed anterior to such first constitution, to origin- 
ate it, plan it, and give existence to it. 

VI. The co-ordination, adaptation and adjustment of matter 
and force, of the original elements and atoms of matter, of 
its essential properties of force, and its various manifestations, 
and their essential properties into a system, method and plan, 
exhibiting design and purpose with law, expressing the high- 
est conceptions of reason with prevision of, and provision 



318 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

for, all that followed, in which are realized the most exalted 
ideas of reason, prove matter and force to be subordinate 
agents, manufactured articles, the products of mind. Hence, 
they are not self-existent and eternal, but must have existed 
after the existence of mind have come into being by the 
action of mind. 

VII. There must be spontaneous activity and self-regu- 
lated and self-controlled action in the first constitution of 
matter and force in the beginning of the course of develop- 
ment, and at every moment of the course of development. 
This is not possible in mere matter and physical force. 

VIII. Matter and physical force are not sufficient ground 
for life, sensation, instinct, reason and moral character. 

IX. If we postulate matter and force as the ground of 
all being, we have to foist into it all the attributes of mind, 
to begin with, then interpolate, at every step, additional 
acts of mind, and thus steal the whole of infinite, intelligent 
causation ; and our entire progress in tracing the course of 
evolution is a tissue of absurdities, contradictions and impos- 
sibilities. 

X. The rational, moral, and religious intuitions of our 
nature utterly refuse to accept matter and force as an ade- 
quate ground for all being. 

We believe mind to be the only eternal and self-existent 
being, and that it existed anterior to matter and force, and 
gave existence to them for these reasons: 

I. Mind is superior to matter and force. The evolutionist 
makes mind the highest of all existence when he makes it 
the highest result of evolution. 

n. The power of mind over matter and force, using and 
controlling them and subordinating them to its uses, demon- 
strates that they are subordinate to mind and exist for it. 

III. Mind alone is a spontaneous, self-active, self-control- 
ling, self-regulating cause. 

IV. Mind alone acts in the true sense of the word. All 
action in the universe can be traced to mind. 

V. The primordial constitution of matter and force is such 
as to demand the existence of mind anterior to such first 



THE TIIEISTIC SOLUTION. 319 

constitution to give to them this constitution and to give to 
them existence. 

VI. The primordial constitution of matter and force is 
such that it demonstrates that they are subordinate agents, 
manufactured articles, and the products of mind, and that 
their first constitution was given to them by mind. Hence, 
mind existed anterior to matter and force and brought them 
into being. 

VII. The first constitution of matter and force, the orig- 
ination, commencement, plan and control of the cause of 
evolution, require spontaneous, self-active, self-regulated and 
self-controlled power. Mind is the only power of this kind 
in the universe, 

VIII. In the first constitution of things, in every step of 
development, and in the present order of things, the most ex- 
alted ideas of reason are realized. Mind must have realized 
these ideas by its action in each case. 

IX. Mind is the only cause, can be the only cause, of life, 
sensation, instinct, reason and moral character. Hence, mind 
has brought them into existence. 

X. If we postulate mind as the Self-existent Being and 
the ground of all being, we have no further difficulty to 
account for all being. 

XI. If we attempt to make matter and force the ground 
of being, we have to give them the attributes of mind, and 
at last place mind before them to give them being and to 
control them. 

XII. Our rational, moral and religious nature demand 
such a ground of all being, and are satisfied with no other. 

We will now bring forward the various theistic arguments, 
or lines of argument, and show that they are inter-depend- 
ent and mutually sustain and strengthen each other; and 
also establish, justify and perfect each one, by what we have 
advanced in our theistic reasonings. The defects of one can 
be remedied by another, and, in fact, they must be taken 
together to make a complete and perfect whole. They are 
strands of an interwoven cord, that should never be used 
separately, or separated in argument. 



320 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

One great difficulty in theistic reasonings has been, that 
the various reasoners have permitted their mental biases to 
prejudice them in favor of one particular line of argument, 
and against the rest. They have vainly attempted to make 
of this one argument, the one and only argument. They have 
relied on it alone, and refused aid, absolutely necessary to 
success, from other lines of argument. Not only so, but 
they have attacked other lines of argument, and have thus 
furnished to the atheist weapons that he has not only wielded 
in the interest of atheism against theism, but weapons that 
he has turned against themselves. 

There is no such antagonism between these lines of argu- 
ment, and no line of argument is complete without the others, 
or even possible without them. The special advocates of 
each line of argument generally borrow largely from the ar- 
guments they assail, and even the arguments in them that 
they most violently assail, and often do so in their attacks. 
Such a course is suicidal. All truth is harmonious and con- 
sistent, and in concord a unit. No one department of truth 
can say to all other departments, "I have no need of thee." 
Let us, then, review all these lines of argument, rounding 
out and perfecting each, by what can be supplied by others, 
and then let us weave them into a five-fold cord that can 
not be broken. It will give us an adequate resume of our 
course of argument. 

I. The Ontological Argument. — In this argument, as in 
all others, we have to begin by accepting the veracity and re- 
liability of our nature, and base our arguments on its valid- 
ity in consciousness, sensation and intuition. If we can not 
do this, all reasoning is destroyed, and all processes and acts 
of reasoning an utter impossibility. We have to assume, 
also, the correspondence between our subjective notions in 
consciousness, sensation and intuition, and the objective re- 
ality in ourselves and nature. If the subjective starting 
point be false, and our knowledge given in consciousness, 
sensation and intuition be not reliable, all objective knowl- 
edge is impossible. If the objective reality does not corres- 
pond with our subjective ideas in consciousness, sensation and 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 321 

intuition, all knowledge of the objective is equally impossi- 
ble. We need no middle, no connecting links, between the 
subjective basis — ideas given in consciousness, sensation and 
intuition — and the objective reality. 

It is time that that delusion of the mediaeval schools was 
given to the bats and moles of the monasteries in which it 
had its origin. The correspondence and connection between 
the objective reality and the subjective ideas in conscious- 
ness, sensation and intuition is immediate and real, or all 
reasoning and knowledge is an impossibility and a cheat. 
Then the intuitions on which the ontological argument is 
based, can not be denied without destroying all possibility 
of knowledge and reasoning. They are self-evident and nec- 
essary, and they express a necessary relation between the 
mind and the universe. 

The conclusions reached in the reasonings in the argument 
can not be denied by one who accepts human reason as a 
means of attaining truth, and as a standard and test of truth ; 
for these conclusions are catholic and universal. We are not 
assuming that we must accept every vagary of the construc- 
tive faculty, the imagination, nor does our argument involve 
us in any such absurdity. Because reason and conscience have 
ever urged on the soul the idea that there is a power that 
punishes crime, and we urge that we should accept this intui- 
tion, it does not follow that we must accept the Furies of 
Grecian fancy. 

This attempt to set to one side these catholic ideas,. or over- 
throw their authority, is generally based on a confusion of the 
catholic ideas of reason with the vagaries of imagination. 
These fancies vary, and each man's images vary from every 
other man's, and there is no catholicity in them, and no 
authority or sanction can be based on them. But, in the idea 
of God, as presented in the ontological argument, there is a 
catholic idea of universal reason, and we must accept it or 
dethrone reason. In this way we always pass from necessary 
notion to reality — from necessary subjective notion to objec- 
tive reality. All reasoners do so in all departments of 
thought, for in this way alone can we reason at all. 



322 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

The idea of God exists as a catholic idea, an universal 
affirmation of reason. If the mind be a valid basis of reason- 
ing and a reliable means of reasoning, He must exist to ac- 
count for the existence of the idea as an universal affii-mation 
of reason. The mind can not, without doing radical violence 
to itself and the constitution of its thinking, divest itself of 
the idea. It can not exist without betraying, even involun- 
tarily, the presence and influence of the intuition. Unless we 
repudiate entirely our nature, we must accept it. We have 
the idea of an absolutely perfect being, and as reality is ever 
greater than mere thought. He must exist. Just as abso- 
lute space, duration and force are greater than mere thought 
of them, and must exist to cause the thought of them, so Abso- 
lute Perfect Being is greater than all mere thought of Him, and 
He exists and eaases this catholic thought in universal human 
reason. This idea is an effect. More must exist in the cause 
than in the effect. The idea of the Absolute Perfect Being 
can not be produced in the mind by the imperfect, the finite 
and contingent. They may lead the mind to an apprehension 
of the Absolute Perfect Being, but they are not its cause. The 
cause must be greater than the effect. The idea of Absolute 
Perfect Being exists in the mind as an effect. God, then, ex- 
ists as necessary to the idea as the substance to the shadow. 
In the generalizations by which catholic ideas are reached, 
there is always more in the conclusion than in the premises or 
the aggregate of the premises. The generalizations of the ma- 
terialist, in every department of science and thought, are pal- 
pable illustrations of this. In every induction, especially in 
inductive generalizations, we rise above our facts and prem- 
ises to the more general and complete. We combine ideas ob- 
tained from various sources into a harmonious whole, by a 
perception of the general thought that expresses their relation. 
In our generalized thoughts and conlusions we rise above our 
data on which they are based. If our nature be valid and re- 
liable, these catholic ideas and intuitions must be accepted as 
verities, or all reasoning is impossible and a folly. Then the 
reasoning of De Cartes and Anselmus must be accepted as 
valid. Thus taking intuition as our basis, and using experi- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 323 

''uce fis an aid, the ontologieal argument can be justified and 
proved valid. The argument from space and time as the 
necessary attributes of substance, establishing that substance 
must exist, of which they are the attributes, is a valid the- 
istic argument, when we prove that mind is the necessary 
substance of which they are necessary attributes. This we 
can do by an appeal to other lines of argument, especially to 
the teleological. Thus the ontologieal argument is justified 
and established. 

II. CosMOLOGicAL ARGUMENT. — All things are changing, 
contingent and dependent, hence there must exist an unchang- 
ing, unconditioned, independent being, in which they have 
their ground. Things now exist, and as nothing produces 
nothing, something must have always existed. We now ex- 
ist, and a universe of phenomena and existence surrounds us, 
hence an adequate cause for us and all things must exist. God 
alone is the unchanging, the necessary, the unconditioned, the 
independent, cr absolute ground of the changing, the contin- 
gent and the dependent. He alone is the suflScient reason of 
all existence, the adequate cause of all being. The principle 
of causation compells us to rise to a cause uncaused, or else 
all existences are eflTects, and we have at least one effect with- 
out a cause, a most palpable absurdity. There are two ob- 
jections to the cosmological line of argument. It is objected 
that we pass from the concrete and caused to the absolute and 
uncaused. Such is the case, but it does not invalidate our 
reasoning or the conclusion reached. Our regress is through 
results progressively vast until they become relatively infinite, 
and in such cases reason always passes back to the absolute. 
All thinkers and reasoners do this in space, time, force and 
being. Why not also in cause and intelligence ? The un- 
deniable fact that the mind invariably and necessarily does 
this, is sufficient proof of its legitimacy, unless we deny the 
validity and reliability of our nature, and all reason. Again, 
it is objected that the unconditioned, the necessary, the cause 
reached by this line of argument, is characterless, and desti- 
tute of intelligence. The teleological argument rounds out the 
cosmological, and proves it, or rather Him, to be an intelli- 



324 THE PROBLEM OP PROBLEMS. 

gence. It will connect the eausa cansmis with the first link of 
our chain of causes and effects. It supplies the intelligence, 
volition and personality needed to complete the cosraological 
argument, and gives us Intelligent Absolute Cause. That 
something must have always existed both atheist and theist 
agree. The design argument completes the cosmological, and 
proves mind to be the necessary antithesis of the existing con- 
tingent. It must be the cause of the effects and existences 
now in being. It is the only sufficient ground for all that 
exists. 

In reasoning thus, we merely accept, as we must, intuitions 
of reason, and do not, as is sometimes objected, fall back on 
faith. The objection that, while claiming to establish the 
existence of God, this argument completes its work by rely- 
ing on mere faith, which is based on the existence of God, 
the very thing to be proved, to do the vital part of the work, 
is based on a confusion of the logical understanding with rea- 
son, and a mistaking of intuition for faith. The regress to 
the absolute, and the affirmation that the absolute must be 
absolute mind, are not acts of faith, but intuitions of reason. 
Even if it were an act of faith, it would be valid if all men 
were by theii- nature compelled to exercise this faith. Reason 
ever leads us through results progressively vast, and through 
the relatively infinite to the absolute. It does this in space, 
time, force, and being — in the reasonings of the atheist as 
palpably as in those of the theist. The design argument 
proves the absolute being, the creating, ruling force, to be 
intelligent being or force. It completes the cosmological argu- 
ment, by proving that the universe is not a ceaseless evolution 
of unknown forces, but that in its first constitution it was an 
effect of an intelligent, absolute cause. Combining these lines 
of argument, we have intelligent, absolute cause, if our nature 
be valid and reliable, if we can reason at all, or are war- 
ranted in accepting any universal affirmation of reason. It is 
only by the old suicidal denial of any correspondence between 
subjective notions in consciousness, sensation, and intuition, 
and objective reality, or by Hamilton's theory of nescience, 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 325 

pressed by the atheist to its logical result, nihilism, that these 
conclusions can be evaded. 

III. The Teleological Aegument. — 1. We begin with 
man's works, and observe their characteristics. We see in 
them co-ordination, adjustment, adaptation, order, method, 
system, law, plan, design, alternativity, choice, prevision of, 
and provision for, ends, or purposes to be accomplished. We 
examine nature and the universe, and we observe in each 
existence and phenomenon, in each class and system, and in 
the universe, these characteristics ; in : 

a. The present order and constitution of things in each 
and all departments of nature and the universe. 

b. We observe these characteristics in the course of evolu- 
tion, as we trace it back to its beginning, in each and every 
step, and pervading, regulating and controlling the course of 
evolution as a- whole. 

c. In the primordial constitution of matter and force, and 
of the universe, and of the course of evolution, and in the 
.absolute beginning of existence or being, we find these charac- 
teristics. 

We know that in man's works they had their origin in 
intelligence. We know that they can have their origin only 
in intelligence, that intelligence alone can cause them, and 
their existence is impossible and unthinkable without intelli- 
gence as their only conceivable, their necessary cause. We 
reason that in nature and the universe, in the present order 
of things, in the course of evolution, and in the absolute be- 
ginning and first constitution of things, they had their origin 
in mind, must have had mind as their only conceivable cause. 
They are inconceivable and unthinkable, unless we place mind 
back of them as their cause, to originate them, cause them, 
give them being. From finite displays of reason, we pass 
back and out, in nature and the universe, to relatively infi- 
nite displays of reason, to absolute displays of reason, and 
absolute reason. A most admirable instance of this is Paley's 
argument on the watch, the hand, the eye, and then the hu- 
man body, the world, the universe. 

2. Or wc commence and examine the nrimordial constitu 



326 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

tion of nature and the universe, then the course of evolution, 
then the present order of things ; and we find certain charac- 
teristics in the absolute beginning, the primordial constitution 
of things, and in the course of evolution, in each and every 
step, and pervading and controlling the entire course of evo- 
lution, and in each and every existence and phenomenon in 
the present order of things, and in the entire universe in its 
}) resent order. We find these characteristics in man's works. 
They are caused by intelhgence in man's works. Intelligence 
U their only conceivable ground. They could not have been 
brought into being except by intelligence. Then we throw 
back these characteristics in the present order of things, in 
the course of evolution, and in the absolute beginning of 
things, on to intelligence as their only conceivable cause. 

3. The most exalted and abstract ideas of reason, in order, 
law, method, plan, system, mathematics, beauty, prevision, 
provision, alternativity and choice, are reahzed: 

a. In the absolute beginning and primordial constitution of 
things. 

b. In the course of evolution, in each and every step, and 
pervading and controlling the whole course. 

c. In the present constitution and order of things. 

They are basic, originating, controlling and regulative ideas, 
in each case. Reason must have realized them in each case, 
and stood back of such realization as its source or cause. 
Nature can be studied, understood and construed, in each of 
these three cases, only in accordance witli, and by means of, 
these ideas of reason. 

Hence, in each case nature had its origin in reason, that con- 
structed it in accordance with these ideas, and by means of 
them. If this were not the case we could not study, under- 
stand and construe nature, and science would be impossible. 
It' nature have not its origin in reason there can be no sci- 
ence. 

4. There is co-ordination, adjustment, adaptation, order, 
method, system, law, plan, design, prevision, provision, alter- 
nativity and choice in each existence and phenomenon, each 
class of existence and phenomena, in the universe, and per- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 327 

meating the whole universe. This is true in themselves, in 
their relation to each and the whole universe. This was true 
in the absolute beginning and primordial constitution of 
things, in each step of the course of evolution, and the entire 
course, and in the present order and constitution of things. 
If such were not the case, matter, force, and their essential 
properties, and original elements, could not exist for one mo- 
ment, or have came into being. They are unthinkable with- 
out them. These characteristics could not have their ground 
in blind, insensate matter and force. Blind, insensate irra- 
tional matter and force are unthinkable as their ground. 
The course of evolution is unthinkable without these ideas as 
originating and controlling ideas. The present order of things 
is also unthinkable without these ideas as controlling ideas. 
They have their only thinkable ground in reason or mind as 
their cause or source. 

5. Matter, in its molecular constitution, in its primordial 
constitution, in regard to essential properties and original ele- 
mentary substances, and force in its primordial constitution, 
and in its essential properties, have realized in them the ideas 
of reason and mind, the most exalted and abstract ideas of 
reason and mind, such as co-ordination, adjustment, adapta- 
tion, order, method, system, law, plan, design, prevision, pro- 
vision, alternativity and choice. They could not have existed 
without the realization of these ideas in their existence, and 
the absolute beginning of their existence. They are unthink- 
able without such realization in their very existence, and the 
absolute beginning of their existence. This proves them to 
be subordinate agents, subordinate to mind, created articles, 
the creation of mind. Then mind existed anterior to matter 
and force, to the primordial constitution and absolute begin- 
ning, to originate them and realize in their absolute begin- 
ning, and their existence, these ideas. We can not conceive 
of or think of matter and force without these ideas. This 
places mind back of matter and force as the cause of all 
being. 

6. Animals, such as the bee, act in accordance with the 
most profound rational laws, and realize in their acts the 



328 THE PEOBLKM OF PROBLEMS. 

most exalted, abstract and profound rational ideas, and work 
out the most profound rational problems. Such an act has 
not its cause in the atom of brain of the bee. It is back of 
the bee. It is not in blind, irrational, insensate matter and 
force. It must be in reason, back of the brain of the bee, 
and of matter and force, that implanted the instinct that ac- 
complishes such wonderful acts of reason. 

7. The most profound, exalted and abstract ideas of chemis- 
try, and other departments of science, are realized and wrought 
out, and problems solved, results reached, in the actions of 
the most insignificant animals. The cause is not in the atom 
of brain of the animal. It is not in blind, irrational, insen- 
sate matter and force. It must be back of the atom of brain 
of the animal or insect, and of blind, insensate, irrational 
matter and force, in reason, that implanted the instinct that 
accomplishes such wonderful acts of reason. 

8. The most profound scientific problems are solved, the 
most profound scientific ideas and laws are realized, and the 
most profound scientific results are accomplished, in the con- 
stitution, organization, organs and structure of animals. Take 
the wonderful electric apparatus of the electric eel ; the 
chemical constitution of the poison or medicine in certain ani- 
mals and plants; the adaptation of organs of birds to flight, 
and millions of such instances. Blind, irrational matter and 
force did not solve such problems of reason and accomplish 
and realize these profound ideas of reason. These results 
have their only thinkable ground in reason. Reason must 
have been back of matter and force realizing these ideas in 
such organizations of matter and force. 

9. Organs of plants and animals are adapted to the organs 
and constitution of other animals and plants, as in poison of 
the serpent and plants, in the medicine of plants, the fertili- 
zation of plants by animals. Blind matter and irrational 
force never did this. They are unthinkable as a cause for 
this. Reason, with a knowledge of the organization and 
constitution of each, alone could have produced such a 
result. 

10. We find similar organs used for different ends as in 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 329 

the hand of man, the paddle of the whale, the wing of the 
bird, the flipper of a mole, etc. We And different organs 
used for similar ends. We see similar causes producing dif- 
ferent effects, effects differing in certain respects, and different 
causes producing similar effects, and yet all maintaining a 
consistent, rational order, unity, harmony and system. This 
implies alternativity and choice, which have their only think- 
able ground in mind. 

11. We see prevision of, and provision for, ends yet future, 
and for future existences and purposes and uses, in the pri- 
mordial constitution of nature, in the course of evolution, and 
all through nature now. This has its only thinkable ground 
in mind. 

12. Science assures us that each new species of animals or 
plants suddenly appears, and in its greatest perfection at first. 
It reveals to us absolutely no approximating or transmuta- 
tional forms. It reveals to us also certain highly organized 
species that appear suddenly, in their greatest perfection, 
without any prophetic or typical forms. This is not the re- 
sult of the indefinite action of blind matter and force. They 
are direct creations of reason. 

This argument has been attacked by the atheist, w^ho de- 
nies all God and revelation; by the theist who wishes to 
make revelation the sole source of all theistic ideas and all 
morality; and by the advocates of the intuitional argument, 
who wish to make the idea of God an immediate or original 
conviction or intuition. With exactly opposite ends in view, 
these extremes meet in their attacks on the teleological argu- 
ment. 

The atheist, knowing well that this is the argument, bends 
all his energies to its destruction. The advocates of other 
lines of argument aid him, and furnish him his arguments 
and weapons of assault; and when he has overturned the 
design argument, as viewed from their standpoint, and by 
means of concessions and cavils that they furnish to him, he 
turns on them and hoists them with their own petard. Nine- 
tenths of all attacks on theistic proofs are directed against 
the design argument. *'It is right to learn from the enemy," 
28 



•33G THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

says tin old maxim. The course pursued by the atheist 
proves that this argument is the argument and the funda- 
mental line of proof Hence, the concessions of theists, now 
so often made, that this argument is not valid, and their at- 
tacks on it, are a betrayal of the citadel of truth into the 
hands of its enemies by those who should be its garrison. 

The atheist knows very well that but comparatively few 
persons are reached by the ontological or cosmological lines 
of argument. He kno>vs that personality and character, the 
things he dislikes and dreads in the idea of God, can be im- 
parted to the being demonstrated by them by the design 
argument alone. He knows that the advocates of the intui- 
tional argument obtain the intuitions they use from the design 
argument, and that they would not have the idea of intelli- 
gence and personality in the being they claim to reach by 
intuition, without the ideas of intelligence furnished by the 
design argument. Indeed, reason would never reach the 
intuitions of intelligence and personality in the absolute be- 
ing without the design argument. 

The atheist well knows that he can make a characterless 
abstraction of the being of all other lines of argument, unless 
the design argument gives to him intelligence, character and 
personality. As these attributes alone make Him a lawgiver, 
ruler and judge, the very cliaracteristics that the atheist 
dreads and dislikes, he bends his entire energies to the de- 
struction of this argument. He uses the positions and con- 
cessions of theists in their attacks on the design argument, 
and then brains them with their own club. 

It is objected that the argument is analogical merely, and 
not demonstrative. It is not analogical, but strictly induc- 
tive. Analogy suggested the argument, it is true, but the 
argument itself is strictly inductive, and based on observa- 
tions and intuitions we can no more deny than we can our 
own existence. The objector must either disprove the phe- 
nomena, or show that they have not the characteristics that 
the argument ascribes to them, or show that the intuitions on 
which the argument is based are not intuitions and valid, oi 
show that the process of reasoning is fallacious. Bestownig a 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 331 

weakening epithet on the argument does not set it to one 
side. 

It is objected that we have more in our conclusion than we 
had in our premises. We reply that all men pass through the 
relatively infinite to the absolute in space, duration, force and 
being. So we can and must in causation and intelligence. 
From finite co-ordination, adaptation, adjustment, order, plan 
and fi^re thought in man's works, we pass through the same 
characteristics in nature, through characteristics progressively 
vast, until they become relatively infinite, until we rise to 
infinite co-ordination, adjustment, adaptation, order, plan, 
and forethought in the infinite universe. Intuition compells 
us to throw these back on Absolute Mind, as the only con- 
ceivable ground. Our premises are infinite co-ordination, 
adjustment, adaptation, order, system and method, then in- 
finite design, plan, law and forethought, and our conclusion 
is Infinite Mind. The argument is as severely inductive as 
it can be made, and as any argument can be. 

It is objected that in man's works we have intelligence 
and volition, using forces already existing, but in the design 
argument we have a creation of forces and materials, hence 
the argument is worthless for want of analogy or similarity. 
But it is not in the slightest degree essential that the acts 
be similar in this particular. Similarity in this particular 
has nothing to do with the argument, for it is not based on, 
nor is it in the least affected by it. 

We recognize design, plan and forethought in man's works, 
in using the forces and materials of nature. This is based 
on certain characteristics of the works, that are not affected 
by the fact whether it is using materials or creating them. In 
the primordial constitution of things, we see design, plan and 
forethought. In the very first constitution of nature, in the 
original co-ordination, adjustment and adaptation of things 
into order, system, method and law, intuition compels us to 
recognize plan, design and forethought, and ascribe them to 
intelligence. As we are compelled by intuition to ascribe one 
to intelligence, so we are compelled to ascribe the other ; and 
the act itself has nothing to do with the argument. The 



332 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

question is, What are the characteristics of the acts ? , If they 
are the same, the characteristics of the causes or agents must 
have been the same. It is objected that man would run 
through an endless chain of causes and effects, and never rise 
to an Absolute Cause. The objection forgets man's work in 
generalizing and passing back to the beginning of things. 
Geology proves nature to be a development, a progression. 
If so, it must have had a beginning. This leads man back to 
the beginning of things. He finds design, plaii and fore- 
thought in the primordial constitution, or very conception of 
things. Intuition compels him to ascribe this to Absolute 
Mind. There is only one escape. — Either deny that man can 
and must intuit design, plan and forethought in nature, and 
in the primordial constitution of things. If one does this, 
he bids adieu to common sense, and, if a scientist, contra- 
dicts his own description of nature. Or denies that design, 
plan and forethought imply intelligence. If one does this he 
is worthy of no further notice. 

The present order of things can not be eternal, for it is a 
progression and must have had a beginning. The things of 
which it is composed are finite, changing and perishable, and 
can not be eternal, self- existent, independent, self-sustaining 
and self- controlling and self-regulating. The contrasts between 
using nature and the creation of nature, do not prevent our 
recognizing design, plan and forethought in the first constitu- 
tion of nature, and the present order of nature and the uni- 
verse. On the undeniable fact, that reason recognizes design, 
plan and forethought in the original constitution of the uni- 
verse and nature, and in the present order of the universe 
and nature, the whole argument depends. Nor is it necessary 
to the argument that we comprehend nature. We admit that 
we merely apprehend much on which the argument is based. 
To object to the argument, however, because we do not com- 
prehend all on which it is based, is to apply the fatal policy 
of nescience, which completely destroys all possibility of 
knowledge. We merely apprehend infinite space, duration, 
force and being, and yet all use them as a valid basis for rea- 
soning, and we are compelled to use them as such. We rise 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 333 

above a phenomenal cause, either physical or spiritual. When 
reason recognizes plan, forethought and design, it intuitively 
concludes that a personal intelligent cause must have been 
their source. Keason intuitively recognizes these characteris- 
tics in the first constitution of things. This proves that the 
first constitution of things, the first phenomenon, had a Per- 
sonal Intelligent Cause, above and back of all phenomena. 
We complete the work of the logical understanding, by an 
intuition of reason, in causation and intelligence, as we do in 
every thing else. The Absolute Personal Cause can not be 
proved to be an effect, by an extension of the design argu- 
ment. We have already shown that we have no analogy to 
lead the argument further, and that we violate all analogy 
and the fundamental principle of reasoning when we do so. 
Reason always stops and rests in tlie absolute. It rests in the 
Absolute Mind, as the Absolute Uncaused and Unconditioned, 
and the summation of all causation and condition. 

The objection that, because there is evil in tlie universe, 
we must give to the Deity a mixed character, applies to all 
theistic arguments, — to one as much as the other. Notwith- 
standing the mystery of evil, reason must believe that the 
good of being, considered in relation to the entire universe, is 
the end of existences and phenomena, and is secured in the 
infinite plan. We have either to take this alternative, which 
leaves the mystery inexplicable, or to take the other alterna- 
tive, which leaves the mystery of evil as inexplicable ; and, by 
plunging into atheism; launches out on a boundless sea of the 
absurd, the contradictory and the impossible. Our conception 
of design does not break down when we expand it to infinity, 
any more than our conceptions of space, duration, force or be- 
ing break down when we expand them to infinity. It is as 
valid in the infinite universe as in the limited area of human 
experience. Law, plan, design and forethought can be ap- 
preliended as infinite, as well as space, time, force or being. 
Reason throws them back on Infinite Reason, as the Absolute 
Cause. We can know the characteristics or attributes of this 
Absolute Cause by His acts, just as we know the characteris- 
tics of men by their acts. Absolute knowledge is not neces- 



334 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

sary, for we do not have that concerning our fellow-man, or 
even ourselves. From the finite we can rise to an appre- 
hension of the infinite in character, as well as in space, dura- 
tion, force and being. The objections urged by the advocates 
of the intuitional argument against the teleological, destroy 
their own argument. Man would never have the intui- 
tions that they use in their argument without the teleological 
argument, or the catholic ideas it evolves and uses. To set 
to one side the teleological argument, they have to deny the 
reliability of our nature in its intuitions, which destroys their 
own method of proof. 

When we reach the Absolute Mind, reason places Him 
above and back of nature and all being but Himself We 
have shown that matter and force are subordinate agents, 
manufactured articles, the products of mind ; hence reason 
places Mind anterior to the primordial constitution of matter 
and force, to give to them this constitution, or to create them; 
and thus makes Mind the beginning of all being, the Absolute 
Cause. The operations of the Life Principle that we see in 
nature, prove it to be an intelligent life principle. This is 
the province of the design argument. Reason places it above 
nature, controlling it, and anterior to nature, giving to nature 
its first constitution, or creating it. We know that design, 
plan and forethought, in our own works, are the product of 
our own intelligent volitional constructive personality, — we 
trace them to it as a cause. So we trace the plan, design and 
forethought that we intuitively and necessarily recognize in 
the first constitution of things, to the intelligent, rational, 
constructive personality of an Intelligent Cause. Geology 
proves the universe to be a progression, and that it had a be- 
ginning ; and reason places Mind anterior to that beginning, 
as a Beginner or Cause. We have already shown that we 
can not press the design argument farther. We can not refuse 
to accept our interpretation of nature, for it is catholic and 
universal. It is an affirmation of universal reason ; and to 
deny it would be to destroy our intuition and all reasoning. 
If we can not accept the design argument, or the intuitions on 
which it is based, or the affirmation of universal reason used 



THE TIIEISTIC SOLUTION. 335 

in it, we can not accept the intuitional argument, nor, indeed, 
can .we accept any reasoning whatever, on this or any other 
topic. The advocate of the intuitional argument claims that 
he has the idea of God as an original conviction of the mind, 
an immediate intuition. It is not, for it admits of proof, and 
the advocates of it do not use it as an immediate intuition. 
But even if it were, if we can not trust our nature in the in- 
tuitions on which the teleological article is based, how can we 
trust it in this intuition ? In precisely the same way we can 
deny all catholic ideas, and destroy all knowledge and possi- 
bility of knowledge. 

The teleological argument alone will make the First Cause 
an intelligence. The teleological argument, using intuition, 
recognizes indices of mind in nature and the universe, and 
the intuitional argument completes the work, by throwing 
them back on mind as their only conceivable ground. We 
do not, however, intuit the Deity as an immediate intuition. 

If we did, it would need no more proof than an axiom, 
but the advocates of the intuitional method of proof admit 
that it can be sustained by proof, and resort to argument to 
establish it, thus showing that it needs proof, and is not an 
immediate intuition. Nor do we intuit the Deity independ- 
ent of the occasions furnished by the senses, which are used 
in the teleological argument. It is only by means of the phe- 
nomena and series of phenomena, that we use in the teleo- 
logical argument, that we rise to the apprehension of God as 
a catholic idea, or universal affirmation of reason. The sav- 
age does not intuit the Deity independent of the phenomena 
of nature, or as an immediate intuition. His sense of de- 
pendence and his intuitions of infinity and causations, and 
the traces of mind that he sees in the phenomena around 
him, united with his religious sentiment, lead him to attrib- 
ute these phenomena to a deity. Because man ever does 
this, we must accept it as a valid intuition, or reject reason. 
The poet does not intuit deity as an immediate intuition, but 
from other intuitions, by means of precisely the reasoning 
pursued in the teleological arguments, he reaches the idea 
as an intuition by generalization, or as a catholic idea. He 



336 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

always presents his thought teleologically. To sustain the 
intuitional argument, we have to assume the validity and re- 
liability of our nature in its intuitions, and the reliability of 
a regressive leap from our finite mind to the infinite, and the 
reliability of our nature in the intuition thus reached. The 
same necessary and fundamental assumption renders valid the 
teleological argument, and removes every objection against it. 
The soul does not rise to God in one intuition, or one act in 
intuition. It reaches the idea by the teleological course. The 
intuitional argument has to commence with our volitional en- 
ergy as a starting point, as its first conception of intelligence 
and cause, and it reaches the idea of God as a generalized 
conclusion. 

It is objected that in the teleological argument, man pro- 
jects himself into nature, and worships his own image. He 
makes God in his own image. Man projects himself into na- 
ture as much in the intuitional argument as in the teleologi- 
cal, for his own intelligence gives him the idea of infinite 
intelligence, and his own attributes give the basis for every 
attribute of infinite intelligence. But we do not project our- 
selves into nature in either argument. If I recognize in an- 
other man's works traces of the same characteristics that I 
[)ossess, and reason that their author must have the same at- 
tributes that I have, I do not project myself into the other 
man's works. In like manner, when I recognize in my works 
certain characteristics and evidences of intelligence, and re- 
cognize in nature the same characteristics and traces of intelli- 
gence, I do not project myself into nature, when I conclude 
that it had an intelligent cause, and one possessing infinite 
perfection, what I possess imperfectly, and in a finite degree. 
Thus we justify the teleological argument, and place it on a 
basis that can not be denied without denying reason. 

IV. The Ethical Argument. — There are in the world 
ideas of good and evil, sin and righteousness in conduct, 
moral desert, character, responsibility and retribution. These 
things exist and are realities, or our nature and reason are 
cheats, and all knowledge a delusion. These ideas attach to 
mind, spirit, personality alone. Blind, irrational matter and 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 337 

force can not have these characteristics. They can not give 
rise to them. They can not be conceived of, as having them 
or giving rise to them. If there ever was a time when only 
blind, irrational matter and force existed, these characteris- 
tics, and what alone can possess them, did not exist. Noth- 
ing existed that could by any means give rise or existence to 
them, or what can alone possess them. These characteristics 
and that which possesses them do exist. Hence, there never 
was a time when mere matter and force alone existed. Mind, 
spirit, personality, which possess these characteristics, must 
have existed forever, or be self-existent, independent and 
self-sustaining. Again, man has the idea of right and wrong, 
good and evil, moral desert, responsibility, obligation and 
retribution. These all point to a Lawgiver, Ruler, Judge and 
Executive to which these ideas refer, and in whom they have 
their ground and counterpart. Unless our nature be a cheat, 
and the universe a delusive fraud, there is a Lawgiver, Ruler 
and Judge to which they refer. The careful study of human 
conduct and its results in individuals and nations, in the 
philosophy of history, establishes the correctness of this catho- 
lic idea of reason. The alternativity and suspense of results 
that there is in the moral World, shows that there is freedom, 
choice, voluntary action, responsibility and probation. It 
also throws us forward into the future world where all this 
will be adjusted by a Supreme Ruler, Judge and Executive. 
V. Intuitional Argument. — Man has veneration and 
spirituality or a religious element in his nature. It will have 
its expression or outcroppings. Man intuitively has aspira- 
tions toward, and desire for, a superior being. Has an intui- 
tive tendency to worship, to recognize the existence of a being 
above himself. So declares all mental science. No man or 
set of men in geography or history have ever existed that 
did not have superstition or manifestations of this religious 
element, and recognitions of superior beings. The lowest 
savages, the Veddas of Ceylon, and the deaf mute, have this 
intuition. There may be error and imperfection, but the idea 
in embryo is there. Then man is as essentially a religious 
being as he is a social being. The atheist perverts and vio- 
29 



338 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

lates his own being, and is as abnormal as a hermit or a sui- 
cide. If man's mental nature be our guide, and be not a 
cheat and a delusion, if reason be at all reliable, and reason- 
ing possible in any sense, there is a God. This is the vital 
issue to-day between theism and atheism. The spiritually 
minded, the poet, the moral philosopher, the moral, the relig- 
ious, the truest and best of our race, have intuitions of a 
God. Man has intuitions that he is finite and dependent, 
and of his need of the infinite. and independent. He has 
intuitions of causation and infinity. He rises to an intuition 
of the infinite in space, time and being. The atheist himself 
does, in infinite space, infinite duration, and of infinite being 
in matter and force, when he makes them self-existent and 
eternal, and pervading all space. All men rise to intuitions 
of infinite cause, infinite intelligence, infinite intelligent cause. 
If consistent and true to his standard, human reason, man, 
all men, must accept the latter intuitions as implicitly as the 
former. 

VI. The historic consensus of all religions and moralities, 
all human speculations, experience and history, is a powerful 
auxiliary argument. The consensus of the course of historic 
development, claimed by the atheist, should be accepted by 
him. It does not end in atheism, as he asserts, but in 
theism. 

VII. Archaic researches into early history and religion, and 
professed revelation in the Scriptures, are a strong argument 
when elaborated. 

VIII. And we call particular attention of the atheist to this. 
All things are the product of an orderly system of evolution, 
in accordance with law, and a consistent system of evolution. 
Our highest achievement is to study this evolution, and learn 
and accept its results. This is practical, true science. So 
says the atheist. Man is the highest product of evolution. 
His mental nature, including the moral and religious, is the 
apex of evolution. The idea of God, and these catholic rehg- 
ious ideas, are the crowning product of evolution. If true 
to his own standard, the atheist must accept them. If this 
course of evolution be not a cheat and a mockery, this crow^n- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 339 

ing product must be true. All this evolution is controlled by 
law. The idea of God is the highest expression of this law 
of evolution, the supreme law of the atheist. If loyal to 
this law, he must accept it. Why does not the atheist accept 
the universal voice of human reason, that he pretends to take 
as his standard ? Why does he reject the highest product of 
that evolution he professes to accept as real science? Why 
does he reject the highest expression of that law of evolution 
he professes to accept as his supreme law and standard ? 

Then, as a summary of these lines of argument, we con- 
clude that the ontological argument gives us the idea af abso- 
lute and necessary and all-perfect being. The cosmological 
argument gives us the absolute cause, the necessary being, 
the unconditioned, the self-existent being. The teleological 
argument makes the absolute being, the all-perfect being, the 
necessary being, the unconditioned, the self-existent being, the 
absolute cause, of the ontological and cosmological arguments, 
an intelligence. The ethical argument proves that he is 
Supreme Lawgiver, Ruler, Judge, and Executive. The teleo- 
logical argument gives to him moral attributes also. The 
intuitional argument furnishes to the ontological and cosmo- 
logical arguments the intuitions of the absolute, the necessary, 
and the unconditioned, and the intuition of causation. It 
furnishes to the teleological argument the intuitions on which 
it is based. It makes the intelligent, moral being or person 
of the teleological and ethical arguments an absolute being 
or pers(m. Thus all the lines of argument are interwoven 
and interdependent. Taken together, they fasten the uni- 
verse to the throne of the Eternal One, who inhabiteth eter- 
nity, by a five-fold chain that can no more be broken than 
the omnipotence of him whose existence they demonstrate. 
We will now close by applying to atheism and theism the 
test of all inductive reasoning. 

I. That which is appealed to as the cause of the phenomena 
or existences is known to exist. 

II. It is known to produce phenomena similar to those 
ascribed to it in the explanation or theory. 



340 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

III. It is adequate to cause all the phenomena ascribed to 
it in the explanation or theory. 

. IV. There is an obvious relation or connection between the 
powers of the cause and the phenomena that are claimed to 
be its effects. 

1. Most of what the atheist, in his speculations, presents as 
causes of the phenomena of nature, do not exist, have never 
existed in human experience, and we have absolutely no evi- 
dence that they ever did exist. 

2. Those things he appeals to as causes of the phenomena 
of nature, that now exist, have never in human knowledge 
been known, in a single instance, to produce any such phe- 
nomena. Indeed, in most cases, they would prevent the pro- 
duction of such phenomena, or destroy the phenomena, if 
brought in contact with them after they had been produced 
by an adequate cause. 

3. Not only do they now fail to produce such phenomena, 
but they have not a single element of causal efficiency in 
them, adequate to the production of such phenomena. There 
is absolutely no relation or connection between the powers of 
what atheism claims to be the cause of the phenomena of 
nature, and the phenomena of nature which it claims to be 
their effects. Not only so, but there is an absolute incom- 
patibility and repugnance often, that would render what it 
appeals to as a cause a destructive agency, instead of a con- 
structive power or cause. 

Let us now test theism : 

1. The cause to which it ascribes the phenomena of nature, 
intelligent, rational, personal energy, is known to exist. In- 
deed, it is the only spontaneous, self-active cause, the only 
ngent, the only power that really acts, of which we have any 
knowledge. The phenomena demand such a cause, and abso- 
lutely can be produced by no other. 

2. It produces precisely such phenomena as we ascribe to 
it in the theistic solution. Indeed, all the phenomena of 
that character, of which we have any knowledge, are pro- 
duced by such a cause. 

3. The cause is adequate to the production of the phenom- 



THE THEISTIC SOLUTION. 341 

ena, and it is the only existence that is adequate to the pro- 
duction of the phenomena. It is the only cause that our 
rational nature will accept, and when applied to the universe 
it is the only cause our rational, moral and religious nature 
will accept. 

4. There is an obvious and necessary relation between the 
phenomena of nature, that are regarded as effects, and the 
powers of that which is regarded as cause, that is as palpable 
as intuition, that is self-evident, and constitutes it the only 
possible cause. With this, we leave the discussion of the 
theistic solution with the reader. If he will not obliterate the 
image of God in the soul, or shut the eye of reason to this 
light that lighteth the world, but with his path illuminated 
by it ; if he will go forth in the prosecution of this line of 
argument, all the universe will be filled with the resplendent 
glory of the Presence, before whom all intelligences should 
bow, exclaiming ''My Lord, and my God." But, if he ex- 
tinguish this light, or shut the eye of reason to it, as the 
bird of night can fly toward the sun and hoot "No light," 
or the blind man can stand with the rays of the sun pouring 
into his sightless eyeballs, and cry " There is no sun," so the 
atheist can gaze on the dazzling throne of Jehovah, and verify 
the words of the psalmist : " The fool hath said in his heart. 
There is no God." 



342 THE PKOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 



CHAPTEK VII. 

Scientific Progkess and the Cardinal Ideas of 
Religion. 

We liave now accomplished the work we proposed when 
we commenced this book, but there are two questions so 
closely connected with what we have written, that, at the 
urgent request of many persons, and especially those who 
urged the publication of the book, we will devote a brief 
space to their consideration. ''Does the theory of evolution, 
or any theory or speculation of science, aftbrd a sufficient 
ground to warrant the abandonment of the cardinal ideas 
of Christianity?" The second is, "Is the permanence of 
Christianity, as a universal religion, incompatible with the 
idea and course of evolution, development and progress, es- 
tablished by modern science?" We shall devote a chapter 
to each, although it would require a volume to do justice to 
either. 

The tendency of scientific research has been to trace all 
phenomena to natural causes, and to bring all causes and 
phenomena under the control of established laws, always act- 
ing uniformly. Man did not do so at first. He began in 
a state of child-like ignorance and simplicity. The race has 
had a growth analogous to the growth of the individual. 
The child begins by noticing the occurrence of phenomena 
around him. He is conscious of intelligent causation in him- 
self. Almost the first things he notices are the results of 
intelligent causation in others. One of the first intuitions 
of the child is that of intelligent causation in himself and 
those around him. His first intuition of causation has its 
origin in consciousness of his own volitional energy, as a 
cause in action producing his acts. The first occurrences he 
observes are the acts of others. He soon, and, indeed, im- 
mediately and intuitively, attributes these acts to them as 
causes, as he knows he is a cause of his own acts. He sees 
occurrences produced by other objects than persons. He 
traces them to these objects as their cause. He attributes 
intelligence to the causes. There are characteristics in the 
occurrences that ally them to his own acts. Hence, the child, 



RELIGION AND SCIP:NCE. 343 

at first, attributes every occurrence to the immediate action 
and energy of intelligence, and lie attributes intelligence to 
every thing. He soon learns, however, to operate through 
second causes. He soon learns that these second or instru- 
mental causes are not personal, efficient causes. He learns 
to recognize second causes in nature, and learns that these 
second causes in nature are not personal, intelligent causes. 

The same thing has happened in the progress of the race. 
At first man attributed all phenomena of nature, at least all 
that he could not understand, to the immediate action and 
energy of intelligences, God or gods, or subordinate spirits — 
supernatural agencies. He learned to recognize second 
causes in nature. He continued to observe and generalize 
until he has risen to the conception of universal matter and 
universal force, and the unity of matter and force, and the 
unity of the phenomena of matter and fo-rce, into a system 
in the universe. Here the materialist stops. He claims 
that investigation has removed one class of phenomena after 
another from under the supposed control and agency of mind, 
and has substituted the universal and uniform agency of 
matter and force, and has led us up to matter and force, act- 
ing uniformly, until we are warranted in assuming that all 
phenomena are the results of universal matter and physical 
force. He assumes that science has demonstrated that mind 
or spirit has no existence, or that there are no such entities 
entirely separate and distinct from matter and physical force. 

Mind is either a function of matter, or it is essentially the 
one force pervading all nature, modified by the organization 
of matter, through which it is displayed ; or, in other words, 
mind is merely a dificrent manifestation of the one physical 
force, modified by that organization of matter, known as our 
body. He denies intelligent causation in the phenomena of 
nature and the universe. Indeed, he denies all causation. 
But he especially denies that mind force, or intelligent causa- 
tion, existed above and anterior to all matter and physical 
force, and before all phenomena, and created matter and 
force, and gave to them their essential properties, and co-oi-- 
dinated and adjusted them to produce phenomena, and regu- 
lated, controlled them in producing phenomena. He denies 
that the only efficient cause in the universe is mind, and that 
the source of all force and cause is mind. He denies that mind 
force was above and anterior to all other existence, and that 
it is potentially and efficiently present in all phenomena, as 
the efficient cause, and the originating, ruling and controlling 
power and energy. Of course he denies all the cardinal ideas 
of all religion and of Christianity. 



344 THE PROBLEM OF PROBT^EMS. 

These cardinal ideas are: 

I. God or the Self-existent, Absolute Mind or Spirit. 

I.I. The creation of all things by Him. 

III. Personal, efficient and active control of all His works 
and all things by Him. 

IV. Spiritual existences, or spirit in man, and also higher 
spirits or intelligences. 

V. Kesponsibility and accountability of man and all intelli- 
gences to God as ruler and judge. 

VI. If consistent, he denies such a distinction between 
things as good and evil, and between acts as voluntary and 
involuntary, and between the latter class of acts as right and 
wrong, and the existence of such attributes of character as 
righteous and wicked, and of such categories as vice and vir- 
tue. He denies all moral distinction between existences, acts 
and characters. 

VII. He must also deny all moral desert in act or char- 
acter. 

VIII. He denies all retribution or punishment and reward 
for conduct or character, by God as ruler and judge. 

IX. Providence or care and proteclion exercised by God 
over His creatures and works. 

X. Prayer to God by intelligences, and answer to such 
prayer by Him in His providence. 

XI. Revelation, or an impartation on the part of God of 
truth, as a standard of trutli, conduct and objective teaching. 

XII. Inspiration of chosen men as a means of revelation. 

XIII. Miracle as an evidence of inspiration and revelation, 
and as a sanction to them, and as a means of cultivating re- 
ligious nature and sentiment. 

XIV. Prophecy as a means of preparation for future 
events, and as a species of miracle. 

XV. Sacrifice as an expiation for sin, as a means of pro- 
pitiation, as a confession of sin and guilt, and as an expression 
of thankfulness. 

XVI. Expiation and atonement by a superior being. 

XVII. Mediation between God and man, usually by one 
superior to the worshiper. 

XVIII. A personal object of faith, gratitude, love and 
devotion in religion. 

XIX. A personal embt)diment of doctrine and life in re- 
ligion. 

XX. A personal leader and guide and ruler in religion. 

XXI. Incarnation, or a manifestation of divinity in human 
form, as leader, personal embodiment of doctrine and life, 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 345 

and as object of devotion, faith and love, and as atonement 
and mediator. 

XXII. Forgiveness of sin, by and through atonement and 
mediation, on reformation of life. 

XXIII. A system of religion, embodying the above cardi- 
nal ideas, and based on them, with dogma, worship and disci- 
pline. 

XIV. A suitable organization, with officers and ordinances. 

The materialist claims that the results of modern science 
warrant our rejecting all these cardhial ideas of rehgion. 

Before we }/ield these Iniiversal affirmations of man's ra- 
tional, moral, and religious nature, at the demand of the 
atheist, he will have to settle in such a way that there can be 
no doubt about it several fundamental queries: 

I. Is the distinction intuitively made by all men between 
mind and matter, and physical force, valid? Or does science 
give us sufficient grounds for rejecting it ? As this distinc- 
tion is a necessary intuition of every mind, capable of the sim- 
plest thinking, we must have proof that does not admit of a 
possibility of a doubt before we can be asked to reject it. 

II. Is it true that all force is identical, and that all that 
have heretofore been regarded as distinct and even antagonis- 
tic forces, are only different manifestations of one all-pervad- 
ing force, and the difference in the displays of force is oc- 
casioned by the difTerence in the organization of the matter 
through which it is manifested? Is there not a radical and 
essential difference between mind, or mind force, and phys- 
ical force ? We must have more than the jingling analogies 
of the new assumption called the correlation of forces. Their 
characteristics are radically different. Inductive reasoning 
would trace the phenomena to radically different causes. 
Physical force and mind force are not convertible, but antago- 
nistic and destructive of each other. 

III. Are there not two domains of being and phenomena 
that are radically and essentially different and distinct — mat- 
ter and physical force and mind; or material and physical 
existence and phenomena on the one side, and mental, or 
spiritual existence and phenomena, on the other? 

IV. Is the theory of atheistic evolution, on which the re- 
jection of these cardinal ideas of religion is based, true? It 
must be demonstrated beyond a doubt, before we can be asked 
to abandon these fundamental nituitions of our nature on its 
account. To ask us to do so now, while it is a mere specula- 
tion or guess, is an insult to common sense. 

V. If it be demonstrated that the present order of things 
be the result of a course of evolution, development, and prog- 



346 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ress; is the course of evolution, development, and progress 
such as to demand or warrant our abandoning these cardinal 
ideas? Is it not in strict accordance with them? Nay! does 
it not teach them, and demand them to account for it ? 

VI. Must not mind have existed anterior to the primordial 
constitution of matter and force, and all things except itself, 
to give to them their very first constitution, or to have cre- 
ated them? 

VII. Must not mind have been the spontaneous, efficient, 
and controlling cause and energy of the course of evolution, 
development, and progress cLainied by the atheist? 

VIII. Must not mind be the spontaneous, efficient, con- 
trolling cause and energy in the present order of things? 

IX. The initial question is; Is the intuitive division of 
phenomena into two classes — physical or material, and mental 
or spiritual, that is instinctively and necessarily made by 
every mind capable of the simplest thought, valid ? Does a 
careful examination of their characteristics and nature war- 
rant such a distinction ? Are they radically and essentially 
different and distinct ? If we settle this in the affirmative, as 
we must, then w^e must trace them to radically different and 
distinct causes. We must admit that they have radically 
different and distinct causes. 

X. The next fundamental question is : Is there in man a con- 
scious, rational, spontaneous, self-active entity, or substan- 
tive agent, called mind or spirit, separate and distinct from 
matter and physical force? 

XI. Another important question is : Is there any sponta- 
neous, self-acting, causal efficiency or energy in matter or 
physical force? Are either matter or physical force ever 
agents, spontaneous, self-acting agents? Is not matter inert 
and passive ? Is not physical force merely an exhibition or 
act of mind ? Is there any spontaneous, self-acting, self-reg- 
ulating, self-controlling, causal efficiency, or energy in blind, 
irrational, physical force ? 

XII. Then arises the question of questions; Must not all 
existence and phenomena in the universe be attributed to 
mind or God ? 

XIII. If there be a God, are not the ideas of creation, gov- 
ernment, retribution, revelation, atonement, and religion a ne- 
cessity? 

XIV. If there be a spirit in man and a God, are not the 
ideas of good and evil, right and wrong, freedom of volition, 
vice and virtue, righteousness and wickedness, moral desert, 
reward and punishment, responsibility, accountability, inspira- 
tion, providence, prayer, miracle, sacrifice, forgiveness, incar- 



KELIGION AND SCIENCE. 347 

nation, and religion a necessity? Suppose it be proved that 
ail of the present order of things is the result of development, 
evolution, and progression, would it demand that we abandon 
these cardinal ideas of religion, or does it not merely demand 
that we modify and correct them, and leave them intact, and 
even exalt and enlarge them, and our conceptions of them? 

In brief, the materialist must show that the distinction in- 
tuitively and invariably made between mind, mind force or 
spirit, and matter and physical force, and between phenomena 
as attributable to mind or intelligent causati(m, and as attrib- 
utable to matter and physical force,, is untenable and ground- 
less. He must show that mind, mental action, mind force, 
is but a different manifestation of physical force, and that 
the difference is occasioned by the difference in the organi- 
zation of the matter, through which it is displayed. He 
must prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, his position, so 
diametrically opposed to all intuition of every mind capable 
of the simplest thought, all root ideas of all languages, all 
fundamental ideas of law, society, morality, human action, 
and all reasoning, and not assume it, or ask us to accept it as 
a mere guess or speculation, and act on it in opposition to all 
intuition. Nor will certain plausible analogies be sufficient. 
It must be demonstrated beyond a doubt. He must show 
beyond a possibility of doubt that human thought, from its 
first act of thinking, for thousands of years, in every mind 
capable of the simplest thought, and that all law, language and 
reasoning has been mistaken in making this distinction, and 
in making it the basis idea of human life and thought. He 
must show that the present order of things can exist without the 
controlling, originating and regulating energy of mind. He 
raust not only show this, but show that it does exist without the 
originating, controlling, and regulating energy of mind. He 
must show that the course of evolution is a path along which 
mind need not, could not and did not travel. He must show 
that the course of evolution was possible without mind, and 
that it did transpire without mind. He must show that the 
primordial constitution of matter and force was possible, and 
that it did transpire without mind existing anterior to it, to 
give to matter and force this primordial constitution, or, in 
other words, create them. We say he must prove that his 
position is an undoubted fact, before he can ask us to aban- 
don these religious ideas. These cardinal religious ideas have 
the field of human thought, and have had full possession of 
it from the very dawn of thought, and this new claimant must 
disprove their title, and establish its own, before it can obtain 
possession. Before the atheist dare demand that we cast to 



348 TITE PROBLEM OF PKOBLEMSo 

one side tliese cardinal religious ideas, these fundamental in- 
tuitions of man's rational, moral and religious nature, in every 
mind capable of the simplest thoughts, from the dawn of hu- 
man thought, he must demonstrate beyond possibility of a 
doubt, that mind had nothing to do with the primordial con- 
stitution of things, that it had nothing to do with the course 
of development, and that it has nothing to do with the present 
order of things. Until he demonstrates this beyond a doubt, 
we will retain these fundamental intuitions of man's religious, 
moral and rational nature, for they are universal and the inva- 
riable and necessary intuitions of the mind. 

Tlie pivotal question on which all turns is the existence of 
God, or an Intelligent First Cause and Ruler and Judge. If 
this be conceded, or established, all the other ideas are neces- 
sary corollaries of this idea of ideas. If the existence of 
God as creator, ruler and judge of the universe be established, 
then revelation, providence, prayer and religion are not only 
possible and probable, but actual and absolutely necessary in 
the nature of things. Then we should affirm continually, 
and lay down as the only basis of all reasoning with the ma- 
terialist, the absolute truth and fundamental character of the 
distinction between mind and matter and physical force, and 
between the phenomena produced by mind and that produced 
by matter and physical force. This regulative thought must 
not be forgotten or laid to one side for one moment. It 
should be predicated, as the basis of all reasoning, that there 
are two domains of existence and phenomena, the mental or 
spiritual, and the material or physical. It should be held as 
a fundamental idea that there are two forces in the universe, 
the mental or spiritual, and the material or physical, and that 
the two are radically and essentially separate and different, 
and that one can not be resolved into the other or evolved 
out of it. Also, that the phenomena produced by mind can 
not be produced by physical force, and that there are phe- 
nomena in the universe that can not be produced by phys- 
ical force, and can be produced by mind alone. And above 
it should be held forth as a regulative thought, not to be 
lost sight of for one moment, that the only spontaneous, self- 
acting, self-regulathig, self controlling force in the universe, 
the only spontaneous, self-acting, self-regulating, self-controll- 
ing, efficient cause in the universe, is mind. 

It must be insisted on as a truth that can not be denied, 
and that must be a fundamental idea in all reasoning on this 
topic, that the primordial constitution of matter and force de- 
manded the pre-existence of mind anterior to any existence 
of matter and force, to give to them this constitution, or to 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 349 

create them. That the primordial constitution of matter and 
force is absolutely unthinkable without such a ground and 
basis. That the course of evolution is a path along which 
mind must necessarily have traveled, and that it is absolutely 
inconceivable without the pre-existence and the originating, 
planning, regulating and controlling energy of mind. That 
the present order of things is unthinkable and absolutely im- 
possible without the originating, controlling and regulating 
energy of mind. The primordial constitution of matter and 
force is radiant with the light of intelligence, for in it are re- 
alized some of the most exalted conceptions of reason. The 
course of evolution is a path illuminated by the light of rea- 
son, for it can be construed only by the most exalted ideas of 
reason, and it must have been constructed by reason, realizing 
in its actions these highest and most abstract ideas of reason. 
The present order of things is dazzlingly luminous with reason 
and thought, for the highest conception of reason concerning 
every department of science, and concerning order, system 
harmony, beauty, wisdom and beneficence, are displayed in it. 
The primordial constitution of matter and force did not ori- 
ginate, as is claimed by the materialist, in a chaos of blind, 
insensate matter and blind, irrational force — in an unconceiv- 
able, unthinkable, nondescript state of things in which even 
the existence of matter and force is inconceivable and un- 
thinkable. Nor was the course of evolution an aimless, pur- 
poseless, unintelligent onward sweeping of blind, irrational 
matter and force. It can only be proved to be such by show- 
ing that it was incoherent, disorderly and incapable of being 
construed or understood by intelligence. Nor is the present 
order of things an aimless happening of the fatal necessities 
of blind, irrational matter and force. If mind did not con- 
struct the primordial constitution of things, and the course 
of evolution, and the present order of things, they can not be 
construed by mind; and if the ideas of reason are not real- 
ized in them, they can not be understood or studied or sys- 
tematized by reason, and all science and knowledge is a chi- 
mera. Science is a classifying the facts and phenomena of 
nature by ideal conceptions, by ideas of reason, and if the 
facts and phenomena of nature have not been constructed 
on and by such ideas, and if they are not realized in them by 
mind, then all such study and understanding and classification 
of nature is impossible, and science is a delusion. 

These cardinal religious ideas are susceptible of two lines of 
proof, the a priori, or the necessities arising out of the idea of 
(rod as Creator, Ruler and Judge of the universe-; and the 
a jyodlcrhrl, or the ]">roof based on man's wants and nature. 



350 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

The existence of God as a self -existent, absolute First Cause 
of all that ex.ists guarantees the truth of the creation of all 
things by Him, and the control and government of all things 
by Him as Ruler and Judge. The idea of a God renders all 
these ideas a necessity. His government must be an immedi- 
ate, ever-present and constantly active control. His omni- 
presence, omniscience and omnipotence render the rational- 
istic idea of divine government, that divorces God from all 
connection with, and control of His works, an impossibility 
and an absurdity. The existence of God as Absolute Spirit, 
guarantees the existence of lower and finite intelligences. 
When the materialist, either atheistic or Christian, asks 
what is spirit ? what is the human spirit ? we answer that the 
human spirit is in kind and nature like God, who is Infinite 
Spirit, but lower in rank or order. The existence of God as 
Ruler of all things guarantees providential care over all His 
works, and especially over His intelligent creatures. God sus- 
tains to lower intelligences the relation of Ruler and Judge 
and Father in Heaven, and this relation renders providential 
care over them by Him a necessity. The exercise of this 
providential care is not a violation of, or a suspension of, or 
an interference with the perfect order of nature, but a neces- 
sary part of the perfect order of nature. God sustains a re- 
lation to intelligences He does not sustain to unintelligent na- 
ture. He sustains a higher relation to them than he does to 
the material world, or a relation that makes His relation to 
the material world subordinate to, and an instrument of His 
relation to intelligences. Providence is a necessary part of 
this relation rendered absolutely necessary by His relation to 
intelligences as their Father in Heaven. 

The existence of God as the Creator, Ruler and Judge of 
all intelligences, and as a being possessing infinite wisdom, 
holiness, justice and power, guarantees the reality of the moral 
ideas of good and evil, and freedom of volition of lower in- 
telligences, right and wrong, righteousness and wickedness, and 
moral desert in actions and character, and. guarantees the ideas 
of accountability and responsibility to Him as Supreme Ruler 
and Judge, and retribution here and hereafter by Him as Su- 
preme Executive. The idea of God is the basis of all idea of 
good and evil, vice and virtue, righteousness and wickedness 
in conduct aijd character. If all things originated in matter 
and force, destitute of moral quality and character, and there 
is nothing but infinite matter and force, then all idea of good 
or evil, vice or virtue, moral desert in conduct or character, 
or responsibility or accountability is a chimera. The consist- 
ent atheist denies all freedom of volition and distinction in 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 351 

character between acts. In his system of atheistic evolution 
of blind matter and force he has no basis for moral quality or 
desert in action. All that man needs to do is to study the 
ongoings of nature in time-succession, and cheat blind matter 
and force out of all the enjoyment he can get, and if he does 
what religion would pronounce to be wrong there is no In- 
telligent Ruler, Judge and Executive. Then this idea of God 
is not only the basis, but the only possible basis for any idea 
of moral desert or quality in character and conduct, and it 
alone renders morality, law and government a right and a 
necessity. 

The idea of God guarantees the ideas of prayer, praise 
and Avorship and answer to prayer. The relation of God to 
all created intelligences, as an Infinitely Powerful, Wise, 
Good and Holy Being, the Creator, Ruler, and Judge of all 
intelligences, and their Father in heaven, renders prayer and 
praise a duty on their part. They owe to him awe, venera- 
tion, gratitude, obedience, devotion and love, and these emo- 
tions should be expressed in prayer, praise and worship. He 
is the source of all good, and it is the duty of all intelligences 
to praise and thank him for all blessings, and ask from him 
those blessings that he alone can bestow. God can justly 
bestow blessings on those who discharge these duties, that he 
can not justly give to those who do not. He can and must 
make blessings contingent on the discharge of these duties, 
or on prayer. Answer to prayer is not a violation of the 
perfect order of nature, nor an interference with the perfect 
order of nature, but is a necessary part of that perfect order, 
and essential to the perfection of an order of intelligent na- 
ture, in which a moral relation exists between a Creator, 
Ruler and Father of intelhgences and his creatures. 

The idea of God as an Infinite Father in heaven, infinite 
in wisdom, power and goodness, guarantees the idea of prov- 
idence or a protecting care over his creatures. His wisdom 
and power render such care possible, his goodness would 
prompt it, and his relation to them as their Father in heaven, 
renders the exercise of such providential care a necessity. 
Such providence is not a violation of the perfect order of 
nature, or an interference with it, but it is an essential part 
of such perfect order of nature, and necessary to the perfec- 
tion of the highest part of nature, moral and spiritual nature. 

When the atheist objects to prayer, answer to prayer, and 
providence, as a violation of the perfect order of nature, he 
begs the whole question. He must prove that nature can 
be, or is perfect without these ideas. On the contrary, the 
idea of God as Creator, Ruler, and Judge and Father in 



352 THE PKOBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

heaven, renders tliese ideas absolutely necessary to tlie per- 
fection of nature. They can be invalidated only by destroy- 
ing that fundamental idea. The intention of Tyndall's famous 
prayer test was to undermine this basis idea of religion, the 
existence of God. If the branches of the tree were cut off, 
the worthless trunk would soon be cut down. 

The idea of God as the Creator, Ruler, Judge and Father 
in heaven of all intelligences, guarantees the validity of the 
idea of revelation, and renders revelation not only probable 
and possible, but an absolute necessity. Revelation is a 
necessity as man is constituted. Man is a worshiping, as 
essentially a worshiping being, as he is a rational or social 
being. He becomes like the Being he worships. Religion 
is the regnant element in morals and conduct. Then man 
must have a pure object of worship and a pure religion. He 
can not discover or devise such an object of worship or 
such a system of religion. God's existence and natural at- 
tributes are discoverable by human reason, but the perfec- 
tion of his moral attributes is not discoverable by reason. 
Man is imperfect and impure. He has never been able to 
emancipate himself from the thralldom of impure systems 
of religion. 

Not a language on earth contains words that express the 
scriptural ideas of holiness and abhorrence of sin, except those 
in which the Scriptures were given, or into which they have 
been translated. And in the case of translation, it takes 
generations to elevate a word so as to express these ideas. 
These attributes of God are the ones that man must know 
to be saved from sin. Hence God must reveal himself, and 
reveal a pure religion. Man needs this revelation of God as 
an object of aspiration and devotion, a model, a lifting and 
expanding power in life and soul. He needs a revelation of 
truth in religion as a standard of right and wrong, and guide 
in duty, and rule of life, and the idea that it is a revelation 
from God, as a sanction to it, to give to it authority. He 
needs this as an objective standard of teaching in morals and 
religion. 

Said one of the wisest of ancients, "The utmost that man 
can do is to attribute to the Being he worships his own im- 
perfections and impurities, magnified to infinity it may be, 
and then became worse by their refiex action on his nature, 
as he worships them." Then, the idea of God and man's 
constitution guarantees the validity of the idea of revelation. 
Revelation is not a violation of the perfect order of nature, 
nor an interference with the perfect order of nature, nor a 
suspension of the perlect order of nature, but it is a part, 



RELIGION AKD SCIENCE. 353 

a necessary part, of this perfect order of nature, a part 
necessary to its perfection, rendered necessary to its perfec- 
tion by the relation God sustains to man as his Creator, 
Ruler, Judge and Father in heaven. 

It has been objected, sometimes, that a revelation from 
such a being as God would be overpowering in its influence 
on man and would destroy his individuality, and be enslav- 
ing in its influence, overpowering his reason and will. If 
given by inspiration of chosen men, it would have its hu- 
man, as well as its divine element, and would not have this 
overpowering influence. If what is revealed be the truth, 
as it must be, if given by inspiration of God, it would be 
elevating and purifying, as the truth in its very nature 
must be. Imparting truth, above the power of discovery 
of the person taught, is elevating and purifying, and does 
not interfere with the individuality or freedom of the per- 
son taught, nor is it overpowering in its influence, if he can 
grasp it. If he can grasp it, it is elevating and educating 
in tendency. If he can not, it does not affect him at all, ex- 
cept to stimulate him to endeavor to undeistand it. Revealed 
truth, then, is an educating influence of the highest possible 
character, a dynamic lifting force, starting the mind in its 
upward course, lifting and leading it upward, and sustaining 
and controlling and directing it in its upward course. 

The idea of God guarantees the validity of the idea of 
miracles, as an evidence of the superhuman origin of religion 
and revelation, and as the credentials of inspiration, and 
revelation. But before we enter into the discussion of this 
topic, let me define what we mean by "natural," "super- 
natural" and a "miracle," for no subject has been more 
befogged and bemuddled, than this question of miracles. The 
term "nature" has general meanings, and also restricted or 
technical meanings. In its general or broadest sense, it in- 
cludes all being, and there is nothing supernatural. 

I. It includes Deity himself, " Partakers of the Divine 
nature." — Paul. Then there is Divine nature. 

II. It includes angelic nature. "He took not the nature 
of angels." — Hebrew letter. There is an angelic nature. 

IH. It includes human nature. "He took on him the seed 
of Abraham." — Hebrew letter. There is a human nature. 

IV. It includes animal nature. 

V. It includes physical nature. 

Then we make other divisions, animate nature and inani- 
mate nature. Organic nature and inorganic nature. Mental 
or rational nature and irrational nature. These divisions are 
sometimes difficult to make. Taking the distinction between 
30 



354 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

matter and force, we have dynamic nature and material na- 
ture. Then the question arises, How shall we divide dynamic 
nature ? Shall we have vital force and physical force ? Where 
shall we place vegetable life or force ? Shall we have spirit- 
ual or mental force or nature, psychical or animal force or 
nature, vegetable force and physical force ? Where shall we 
place animal life? Is it distinct from mind or mental force? 
Shall we have two kinds of mental force, spiritual or rational, 
and psychical or mere animal understanding? Shall we place 
vegetable life in physical force? Or shall we distinguish be- 
tween physical force and vital force, and then divide vital 
force into vegetable, animal or psychical, and rational or 
spiritual? Then in its broadest sense the term "nature" in- 
cludes all being. Spiritual nature includes all spirit. Dy- 
namic nature includes all force. Material nature includes 
all matter. 

Sometimes the term nature is used as the correlative of 
man, especially of his rational or spiritual nature, as when 
we say man is lord of natm'e or he studies nature. Again 
it includes man, animal and physical nature, or man, animals 
and physical force and matter ; and then man is a part of 
nature. There is a mental or a spiritual nature, and a phys- 
ical nature ; and in this- use of nature, man's entire nature 
is a part of nature. Nature is used in this latter sense, 1 
apprehend, when we say a nnracle is supernatural, or a phe- 
nomenon produced by supernatural power. We mean that 
it is produced by an intelligence above man. It is not pro- 
duced by matter and piiysical force or man ; which is all we 
include in nature, hi this use of the term nature. The natural 
includes matter, piiysical force and man, and all they produce. 
The supernatural includes all that is above them, or all in- 
telligence above man and physical nature, and all that is 
produced by such intelligence. I confess I do not like the 
term "supernatural," for it is liable to be misunderstood. 
In one sense, an event may be supernatural. It may be su- 
pernatural in the above technical or restricted sense. In the 
general or broad use of the term, nature, it is not super- 
natural and no event can be. 

We can very often get a better insight into the meaning of 
words, by tracing their histor}' ; we learn what they mean in 
certain uses of them, by learning how they come to be so 
used. Let us endeavor to trace, in this way, the application 
and use of the terms "natural" and "supernatural," in con- 
nection with religion, especially in connection with miracles 
and revelation. The Scriptures teach that God created the 
matter of the earth and the forces manifested in it. He ere- 



EELIGION AND SCIENCE. 355 

ated matter, physical force, vegetable and animal existences, 
and man; and placed man over his works, as iord of creation. 
Creation was then complete, and matter, physical force, vege- 
table and animal existences and man constituted the system of 
nature. It is in this sense that the term nature is used, and 
all this is called natural. After man sinned he needed revela- 
tion, a revealed religion. This was given by direct revelation 
through angels, or through inspired men. All such revela- 
tion and inspiration, and the phenomena in attestation of it, 
were called supernatural. Then in this application of the 
term natural, it included all that mere physical nature, or 
man, or man using physical nature, could do, or did. The 
supernatural included all that was done by other intelligences 
than man. Natural existences are matter, physical force, 
vegetable and animal existences and man. Natural phe- 
nomena include all that matter, physical force or man can do. 
Supernatural existences include all other intelligences than 
man. Supernatural phenomena include all phenomena pro- 
duced by any other intelligence than man. The spirits of 
dead men and the phenomena produced by them, angels and 
the phenomena produced by them, and Divinity and the 
phenomena produced by Divinity (aside from what is produced 
through the operation of nature as defined above), are all in- 
cluded in the supernatural. 

Then the term miracle includes all phenomena produced by 
other intelligences thaii man, as he lives here in this world, 
or as he exists before death; such as revelation, inspiration 
and the phenomena produced by such intelligences in connec- 
tion with revelation and inspiration, and in attestation of them. 
The Greek term translated miracle, literally means a sign, 
and when used as it is in the passages where it is translated 
miracle, it means a sign of the presence and activity of another 
intelligence than man. The intelligences were generally 
above man, but not necessarily so, for the spirits of dead men 
were included among them. The phenomena were generally 
above what man could do, but not necessarily so. If uncon- 
nected with man's agency or instrumentality, it need only be 
above what physical nature could do — the work of intelligence, 
and need not be above what man could do. If connected 
with man's agency or instrumentality, it must be above what 
he could do. It was usually wonderful and strange, but 
gratifying mere wonder and love of the marvelous and strange 
was no part of the object of miracles. Paul condemned mere 
wonder-working and a mere gratification of the love of the 
marvelous. The miracle was generally of a grand, exalted 
and divine character, but not necessarily or always so, as the 



356 THE PROBT.EM OF PROBLEMS. 

minicle of Balaam's ass, and the drowning of the swine, clear, 
ly show. It was generally beneficial, but not always so. The 
cursing of the barren fig tree Avas not. The miracle was 
generally useful, and intended to be always so, but men 
could pervert the power and abuse it, as did the men speak- 
ing with tongues in the Corinthian church. The one essen- 
tial characteristic was that it be a sign of the presence and 
activity of another intelligence than man. All such phe- 
nomena, and the intelligence producing them, were included 
in the term supernatural. 

The query still stands unanswered, however. If we accept 
the above technical use of the terms, natural and super- 
natural in defining a miracle, how can we distinguish between 
the natural and the supernatural? How can we tell when an 
event is above matter, physical force, and man, and produced 
by an intelligence, above these departments of nature? Per- 
haps we can not better accomplish this, than by an examina- 
tion of the meaning and nature of miracles. A miracle is not 
a violation of the order or laws of nature, nor a interference 
with them, nor a suspension of them. Nor is an event a 
miracle because human experience has never met with it be- 
fore. Nor is a thing a miracle because it never occuiTcd 
before. Nor because it is wonderful. Nor is a thing a mir- 
acle because we do not understand its cause. Nor must an 
event be without a cause in order to be a miracle. Nor must 
it be without second cause or means to be a miracle. Nor 
would a knowledge of the cause of an event strip it of its 
miraculous character. Nor is it necessary that an event be 
above human power to be a miracle. We may know how a 
thing may be done and yet it be a miracle. It may be per- 
formed through second causes and be a miracle. It may be 
within the power of man and be a miracle. It might be a 
common or ordinary occurrence and be a miracle. What, 
then, are the characteristics of a miracle? 

I. It must be above the power of mere physical nature. 
This alone does not constitute a miracle. Man's works are 
above mere physical nature, but they are not miraculous. 

II. It is generally out of the usual course of things. This 
does not make an event a miracle, for an event might be cus- 
tomary and usual, and yet be a miracle. 

III. It must, in some way, be evidently the Avork of intelli- 
gence and volition, either by its being declared to be such by 
the higher power producing it, or by its being wrought in 
accordance with the prophecy or command of some one. 

IV. If performed by man, or if he be the agent or instru- 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 357 

merit In performing it, it must be above what man himself 
can do, or what he can accomplish, using the forces of natui^e. 

V. Then a miracle is an act performed by some other in- 
telligence than man, and generally superior to man. 

VI. It may be a direct act, without the use of second 
causes or means, but it is not necessarily such an act. Be- 
cause Ave can not see the second causes we can not deny their 
use. Nor should we assume that there are no second causes. 
Above all, we should not assume that a miracle is an event 
without a cause. Nor allow^ opponents of miracles to attach 
such an absurd characteristic to them. Huxley is guilty of 
gross ignorance, or gross unfairness, in attaching to miracles 
such a characteristic. If the event be above physical nature, 
as a cause, and unconnected with man's instrumentality, and 
evidently the work of intelligence; or if connected with man's 
instrumentality, if it be above the power of man, or his power 
using physical nature, it is a miracle. It must obviously be 
the work of intelligence, and has a cause, an intelligent 
cause. 

VII. We have said that it is not necessary that an event 
be unusual or strange to be a miracle, although miracles were 
of that character. The scriptural meaning of a miracle is a 
sign — a sign of the presence or activity of an intelligence dis- 
tinct from and usually superior to imhi. Hence, if angels or 
God were to perform acts or produce phenomena, such as are 
called miracles or signs in the Scriptures, every hour, it would 
not destroy their miraculous character, because they were cus- 
tomary. They would still be signs of the presence and activ- 
ity of an intelligence distinct from man and superior to him. 

VIII. Then an intelligence, separate and distinct from 
man, may intervene in the operations of nature, just as man 
does, to accomplish what mere physical nature alone can not 
do. Then an event unconnected with human agency and 
obviously above the power of mere physical nature, because 
the work of intelligence is a miracle. The essential charac- 
teristic proving that it is above mere physical nature, is that 
it is obviously the work of intelligence. It is a miracle be- 
cause the work of intelligence, and some other intelligence 
than man. 

IX. An intelligence distinct from man may, in connection 
with man, intervene in the operations of nature, and by using 
the powers of nature as man does, accomplish what mere 
physical nature can not do, or what man can not do, or what 
man, using physical nature, can not do. The essential char- 
acteristic in this case is, that it must obviously be the work 
of intelligence, and above what physical nature can do, or 



358 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

man can do, or man using physical nature can do. It is the 
work of some other intelhgence than man. 

X. Then the necessary distinction between a miracle on the 
one hand, and what physi.cal nature can accomplish, or man 
can accomplish, or man using physical nature can accomplish, 
is this: If transpiring unconnected with man's agency, it 
must be above the power of physical nature, the work of an 
intelligence above physical nature. It may or it may not be 
above what man could do. If it be the work of an intelli- 
gence, and man had nothing to do with it, it would be a mir- 
acle, whether it be above what man could do or not. If per- 
formed in connection with man's instrumentality, it must be 
above the power of pliysical nature, and above man's power, 
and above the power of man using physical nature. It is the 
work of an intelligence distinct from man and above man. 

XI. It is not a violation of the perfect order of nature, nor 
an interference with the perfect order of nature, nor a suspen- 
sion of the perfect order of nature, ])ut the appearance of a 
higher part of nature, and a higher and more perfect use of 
nature than appears in the phenomena of physical nature or 
in man's use of nature. It is in accordance with a higher 
hiAv of nature, a higher order of nature, than man's use of 
nature. 

XII. Nature is physical, human and superhuman, and in 
the superhuman we have the divine. If we include all na- 
ture, a miracle is not supernatural ; it is super-physical and 
superhuman, but not super-angelic or super-divine. 

XIII. Then a miracle is an occurrence that is a sign of the 
activity and presence of an intelligence distinct from man. 
It may be immediate or without human agency, or mediate, 
or through human agency. When it occurs at the word or 
prophecy or through the agency of man, it is an evidence that 
he has superhuman aid. Miracles are the credentials of 
inspiration and revelation. Men never have accepted any 
thing as inspiration and revelation, or regarded a man as 
inspired without miracles, as credentials. If superhuman 
origin or aid is claimed, miracles are demanded as the evi- 
dence or credentials. 

The old theologians thought a miracle must not only be out 
of power of man and physical nature to be unique and evi- 
dently of superhuman origin, but it must be a suspension of 
the order of nature, or a violation of the order of nature, and 
without a cause, or at least unconnected with known causes or 
the order of nature. The skeptic accepts these characteristics, 
and often exaggerates them, and then appeals to the uniform- 
ity of nature to prove that no such events can occur. He 



EELIGION AND SCIENCE. 359 

also appeals to the fact that the laws and order of nature are 
the work of a perfect being, and must be perfect. Hence, a 
miracle is a violation of this perfect order, and an interference 
with its perfection, or a confession that the order was not per- 
fect at first. He appeals to the perfection of the order of 
nature to show that a miracle, as defined by old theologians, 
is an impossibility. 

I have attempted to remove the objections of the skeptic, 
by removing the objectionable characteristics that he and the 
old theologians have attached to them. I have attempted to 
make them a part of the perfect system of nature — the ap- 
pearance of a higher part of nature. The only question now 
is, Have I accomplished this and avoided stripping miracles 
of characteristics that they actually possess, and that are es- 
sential to the accomplishment of their purpose — a sign of the 
presence and activity of another intelligence than man? 
Have I stripped miracles of essential characteristics, and low- 
ered them to the level of ordinary events ? Have I included 
all that is essential to them, and to their purpose, while 
a,tten;ipting to strip them of excrescences that theologians and 
skeptics have attached to them? 

I have reached these conclusions: When used in defining 
a miracle, the word natural includes physical force, matter 
and man, and what they can produce. The term supernatu- 
ral includes intelligences above man and phenomena produced 
by them. It would be well to drop this technical use of these 
words, for it most invariably leads to confusion. We can dis- 
tinguish between a miraculous event and one that is not by 
these characteristics. If unconnected with man's agency or 
instrumentality, it must be above mere physical force or mat- 
ter. The characteristic determining this is, it is undeniably 
the work of an intelligence — some other intelligence than man. 
If performed in connection with man, through his agency or 
instrumentality, it must be undeniably above the power of 
physical nature, and above the power of man using physical 
nature. It must be the work of an intelligence other than 
man. One diflficulty, then, will be to show that the event 
was not performed through man's instrumentality. Deception 
and trickery must be guarded against. Many of the miracles 
of spiritualism are evidently the work of intelligence, and 
above mere physical nature ; but they are performed by the 
medium unconsciously, especially when the medium is in an 
abnormal condition. When performed through the agency 
or instrumentality of man, we have to determine again that 
the event is above the power of physical nature. Its being 
undeniably the work of intelligence will do this. Then comes 



360 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

the most difficult task. We have to determine whether it be 
above the power of man or his power using physical nature. 
First we have to guard against fraud and deception, and know 
that the event transpired, and just what transpired. Delu- 
sion and exaggeration must be guarded against. Having 
learned the exact proportions of the event, and that it is the 
work of intelligence, then the question arises. What can man 
do, and what can he do using the powers of physical nature? 
Here is another problem : Do we know, the limit of man's 
power in both normal and abnormal states? Here is one 
source of error in spiritualism. Some of its phenomena actu- 
ally transpire. Tliey are the work of an intelligence, and 
they are strange and wonderful, hence they conclude they are 
above man's power, and the work of an intelligence other than 
man; when they are the work of man, the medium in an ab- 
normal state. They have not learned and defined the limit 
of man's power in an abnormal condition. 

Then an event unconnected with man's agency or instru- 
mentality, and evidently the work of intelligence, is a miracle 
or the sign of the presence and activity of some other intelli- 
gence than man. An event performed in connection with 
man's agency or instrumentality is a miracle if undeniably 
the work of an intelligence, and undeniably above the power 
of physical nature, and above the power of man using phys- 
iccil nature. It is a sign of the presence and activity of some 
other intelligence than man. 

We have shown that the existence of God guaranteed the 
validity of revelation and inspiration. The existence of tiie 
cause of miracles is guaranteed by the existence of God ; and 
as a necessary consequence the possibility of miracles, for it 
gives the higher intelligence needed as the cause of miracles, 
it guarantees, also, the validity of this idea of miracles, for 
revelation being a necessity, if God exists as our Father in 
heaven, then miracles are necessary as the evidence and cre- 
dentials of revelation and inspiration. 

The fundamental error of the materialist, and tlie source of 
all other errors, is, that he overlooks entirely the mental and 
spiritual world and its phenomena. He entirely ignores and 
refuses to investigate or accept the phenomena of the mental 
and spiritual world, and thus violates all .inductive philoso- 
phy, which he claims to take as his guide. He confounds 
these entirely distinct and radically dissimilar phenomena, and 
persists in dragging down the mental and spiritual world to a 
level Avith the material world, and merges it into, or buries it 
up in the material world. He lays down as the object of all 
study, and the sum of all wisdom, that we study the ongoings 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 361 

of physical nature in time-succession, and then accommodate 
our lives to what we thus learn. But such a philosophy is 
most false and pernicious. Man does not progress by abject 
submission to the ongoing of pliysical nature. Man progresses 
as he learns the operations of nature, and intervenes in them, 
and controls them, and renders them submissive to himselT; 
and not as he obeys them. Man's progress is not measured 
by his obedience to physical nature, but by his subjecting 
physical nature, and making it obey him. The less he inter- 
feres with, and controvenes the ongoings of physical nature, 
the more degraded he is. What the atheist presents as the 
highest end of man's nature and effort, would degrade him to 
the level of the brute, that is absolutely submissive to the 
ongoings of physical nature. It is a fatal error of the atheist 
that he makes the laws and ongoings of physical nature so 
sacred, that they can not be modified for the higher world — 
the mental and spiritual world. Tiiey make mind the slave 
of matter, instead of making matter the servant of mind. 
The material world was made for man, and not man for the 
material world. Man can intervene in the operations of na- 
ture, and modify the processes of matter and physical force, 
and render them subservient to his uses and needs. Higher 
intelligences can to a higher degree than man, and God can 
to an absolute degree, limited only by the moral necessities 
and perfections of his being. All the objections and analo- 
gies of the materialist are taken from the physical world, en- 
tirely dissimilar to the spiritual world, and entirely below it. 
If the advocates of these great religious ideas expose, as they 
always should, this fallacy of the materialist, and set to one 
side the sopliistries based on it, there will not be an objection 
to these ideas left. 

Then in the investigation of these great religious ideas, we 
have man's moral and religious nature as the data, and the 
only data, by means of which they can be investigated. 
Man has a moral, rational, and religious nature, /and from the 
earliest dawn of human experience, in nine hundred and 
ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out 
of every million, man's rational, moral, and religious nature 
has given him as its catholic ideas, its universal afiirmations, 
its most invariable intuitions, these cardinal, religious ideas. 
In settling the validity of these catholic, religious ideas, we use 
the analogies of the parental relation, and government, of the 
ruler and subject, and man's social relations and educational 
agencies and their appliances. As man has ever entered into 
these relations as the higliest use and achievement of his 
highest nature, these analogies are infinitely above those of 
;]1 



362 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

the material world. God, as an intelligence, snstains to us a 
relation that he does not to the material world, and analo- 
gous to the relations of the parental, governmental, social, and 
educational life of man. These relations and their analogies 
are germain to the investigation before us, and the facts and 
laws of the physical world are uttej-ly foreign to it. Then the 
facts, laws, and analogies of these human relations are the 
data, and the only data, that are relevant to an investigation 
whether these catholic, religious ideas be valid or not. We 
propose now to examine man's needs, as determined by his 
rational, moral, and religious relations, and determine, a pos- 
teriori, the validity of these catholic, religious ideas. In hu- 
man society and life, we have the parental relation, govern- 
ment and authority. This relation is chosen by the Scrip- 
tures to express the perfect idea of the relation that God sus- 
tains to us. This relation, government, and authority does 
not interfere with human freedom or individuality, nor is it 
enslaving. On the contrary, it is absolutely necessary to the 
highest good of the individual, and true freedom can only be 
secured and maintained through this relation, government, and 
authority. In all relations and intercourse of men, there must 
be system, order, regulation, and government. Human gov- 
ernment does not interfere with human individuality or free- 
dom, nor does it enslave. On the contrary, true freedom and 
the greatest good of the individual can be secured and main- 
tained only through human governments, properly constituted 
and administered. Then this intuition of divine government 
by God as our Father in heaven, is entirely in accordance 
with man's rational, moral, and religious nature, and is de- 
manded by it, and is its highest idea, and is necessary to 
man's highest good. The basis idea of all conceptions of right 
and wrong, all morality, all law, order, government, and so- 
ciety is the idea of God as ruler and judge of men as their 
Father in heaven. 

Men intuitively divide all events into two classes, voluntary 
and involuntary. They as intuitively divide all voluntary 
actions into two classes, good and evil, and they apply these 
characteristics to voluntary acts alone. They intuitively 
divide voluntary acts and their results into the categories of 
good and evil, right and wrong. To voluntary acts and their 
results they intuitively attach the ideas and characteristics of 
responsibility and accountability. Parents deal thus with their 
children. So do governments with subjects. So do all men 
with each other. All language, thought, reasoning, and soci- 
ety, law, and government, are based on these ideas. Out of 
these ideas flows naturally the idea of retribution or reward 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. . 363 

and punishment. Parents invariably deal with their children 
on this idea. So do governments with their subjects. So do 
all men with each other. These ideas of good and evil, ac- 
countability, responsibility, reward and punishment have their 
basis in the idea of God as supreme lawgiver, ruler, judge 
and executive, as our Father in heaven. Men intuitively 
recognize the truth that the universe is conducted and con- 
trolled in accordance with these ideas, and that God deals 
with men in accordance with them. They are necessary ideas, 
intuitions of man's nature. These ideas, and the truth that 
they all have their basis, center and perfect realization in 
God, as the creator, lawgiver, ruler, judge and executive of 
the universe, are necessary to the existence of law, order, 
society, government and morality, and are demanded by the 
highest interests of each individual, and the race. AVe repeat 
that these ideas of God as lawgiver, ruler, judge and execu- 
tive, and of retribution by him, and of his will and authority, 
are the basis of all ideas of good and evil, right and wrong, 
reward and punishment, responsibility, accountability and 
retribution, and the sanction of all law, order, government 
and authority. 

Parents exercise a protecting, guarding, providential care 
over their children. Their relation to them as those who have 
brought them into being, and as those who have superior wis- 
dom, and the power to thus protect and guard and provide 
for them, render it their duty to do so. The highest interests 
of the child demand it. There is no violation of the laws of 
nature, when a parent protects his child from injury by phys- 
ical nature. Or when he so controls the laws of nature, as to 
make them subservient to the interests of the child. It is 
the exercise of a higher nature, and a proper use of physical 
nature. Providential care over his creatures is a necessary part 
of the relation that God sustains to them as their Father. He 
brought them into being, and his wisdom, power and ability 
to protect, guard and provide for them, make such providence 
a necessary part of the relation he sustains to them. He no 
more violates the perfect order of nature, when he exercises 
such providential care over us, than a parent does when he 
exercises similar providential care over a child. It is a part 
of the perfect order of nature when we include, as Ave should, 
all nature, intelligent nature as well as physical nature, and 
necessary to its perfection. It is but just, and a necessary 
part of the moral government of God, necessary to its perfec- 
tion, that God should exercise a care over the obedient that 
he does not over the disobedient and ungrateful. P'i''^"^'s, 



364 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

governments, and all men so act in their exercise of provi- 
dential care for others. 

In the family and other relations, the child is expected to 
exercise reverence and veneration toward his parents and 
superiors. So are all persons, in all relations. The child and 
needy persons are expected to ask properly for favors, and 
what they need. They are expected to be grateful for them. 
Parents and benefactors can justly make favors contingent on 
the discharge of these duties. They are justified in bestowing 
them on the performance of these duties, and in refusing 
them, in case of a refusal or neglect to perform them. In 
like manner, we owe reverence, awe and worship to God. We 
should ask properly for favors, and be grateful to him as our 
Father. He can and does make blessings contingent on the 
discharge of these duties. He can justly bestow on us bless- 
ings only when we discharge such duties, and he will justly 
refuse us blessings when we neglect or refuse to discharge 
them. We do not expect to induce God to give us what he 
did not design for us, or what is not right for us to have. 
But we can make it right for God to give us these blessings, 
because we have placed ourselves in the right relation to him. 
We do not obtain what God did not design for us, but he 
designs to give us these blessings because we have done our 
duty, and made it right for him to give them to us. Then 
prayer and answer to prayer are not a violation of the perfect 
order of nature, but a necessary part of such perfect order of 
nature, and necessary to that perfection that the materialist 
supposes is impeached by the idea. 

In the case of children and those who are ignorant of what 
they should know, teaching or revelation of what they do 
not know, and can not attain by their own efi^orts, is the duty 
of parents and all possessing such knowledge. It is demanded 
by duty and benevolence. The highest interests of the taught 
demand it. There is no violation of nature, or their nature 
in such teaching, but a meeting of one of the demands of 
their nature. It is the highest use of their nature. There is 
no violation of the freedom or individuality of the taught, 
hut such instruction is necessary to the perfection of both. 
Then revelation of truth on moral, religious subjects, revela- 
tion of such truth as man could not attain by his own efforts, 
is a necessary part of the relation God, as our Fatlier in 
heaven, sustains to us, his creatures. It is demanded by our 
nature. It is necessary to a proper use of our nature, and 
the highest use of our nature. Warning children of coming 
dangers and duties, and such warning of the ignorant or 
those exposed to danger, is a duty of all who can give such 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 365 

warning. It is demanded by the highest interests of the 
benefited. Then prophecy is a necessary part of God's reve- 
lation to us. It warns us of coming events and duties, pre- 
parer us for them, and cheers and sustains us in duty and 
trial. 

It is often objected that such revelation would be overpow- 
ering in its influence, and enslaving in its tendency, if it 
came from an infinite being. It must have its human as well 
as its divine side, to be adapted to man. It must be given 
by inspiration of God, through inspired men." This brings it 
within man's reach, gives to it a human side, and saves it from 
becoming overpowering in its influence. Its divine element 
gives it sanction and authority, and its human element adapts 
it to man's capacity and nature. Miracles are a necessary 
part of this revelation of religious and moral truth. They 
are necessary as the credentials of inspiration and revelation. 
A miracle is a sign of the presence of a higher intelligence, 
a necessary sign and credential of inspiration by and reve- 
lation from such intelligence. Miracles are not a violation 
of the laws of nature, any more than man's use of nature 
is a violation of nature. They are a higher use of nature 
than man can make, a use by a higher intelligence, and for 
a higher purpose. Then these cardinal religious ideas of 
providence, answer to prayer, revelation, inspiration, prophecy 
and miracle, are a necessary part of the moral and religious, 
domain of nature, the higher, moral and spiritual world, 
for which the physical world exists. They are a necessary 
part of a moral and spiritual world, in which God exists 
as the creator, lawgiver and ruler of men as their Father in 
heaven. They are not a violation of nature, but a part 
of nature, the highest part of nature, and the highest use 
of physical nature. Taking the moral and spiritual world 
as our bases of reasoning, and man's moral and spiritual 
nature as our standard, and we must accept these cardinal 
intuitions of our rational, moral and religious nature. 

Sacrifice as a confession of sin, and as a means of expia- 
tion and propitiation, and as an expression of gratitude, is 
universal. It is a part of all religions, and is found in all 
nations and tribes of men, and has been thus universally 
practiced in all ages. It is either the result of the consti- 
tution of man's religious nature, or of tradition from primitive 
revelation, or both. In either case its propriety and efficacy 
is established. In giving man' a revealed religion, God would 
take this universal instinct of humanity, and by elevating and 
developing, would make it a means of religious cultivation 
and elevation. Atonement is another catholic religious idea. 



366 THE PKOBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

So also is sacrifice as a means of atonement. Infidelity has 
ever persistently clamored against this universal idea of all 
religions. It overlooks certain facts in nature and in the moral 
world. 

Vicarious suffering is the order of nature. We came into 
being by the suffering of another. We are reared to man- 
hood by the vicarious toil and sacrifice of others. Moral ele- 
vation and progress has ever been through the vicarious self- 
sacrifice of the good and the noble. The patriot, the 
philanthropist and the martyr, have ever given themselves 
for the enslaved, the unfortunate, the helpless, and even the 
ignorant, vicious and degraded. They never receive the 
good they confer on others. The patriot and martyr never 
receive the result of their saciifices. It accrues to others and 
generally to the ones who destroy them. The missionary and 
philanthropist who labor for the vicious and criminal, are 
persecuted and slain by the ones for whom they sacrificed 
themselves. Then the moral elevation of the race has ever 
been through the vicarious suffering and self-sacrifice of the 
good and noble, for the ignorant, fallen, degraded and unfor- 
tunate ; and often for the vicious and ungrateful. Such is 
the order of moral nature. This the infidel overlooks. Then 
the vicarious atonement of the Son of God is in exact accord- 
ance with the order of nature. 

Expiation, or the suffering of the good for the vicious, is 
another universal idea of religion. It is necessary to vindi- 
cate the majesty of the government and law, and to express 
the guilt and enormity of sin. Also to express the regard 
God has for the majesty of His government, and the inviola- 
bility of His law, and His abhorrence of sin, and to show the 
inviolability of his law. Also to produce remorse and sorrow 
for sin, and to arouse the moral nature of the sinner, and to 
appeal to his gratitude, and secure his love and devotion, 
to the one thus suffering for him. Administrative justice, 
and not retributive justice, demands expiation. It is de- 
manded by man's needs, and not by any necessity of the 
divine nature. 

Mediation is another intuition of our nature. When we 
have injured any one dear to us, and produced alienation, we 
invariably and instinctively seek for a person of excellent 
character, and of influence with the one we have injured, to 
act as mediator, and secure reconciliation. Man is led by de- 
votion to an exalted person, by faith in and love for a person, 
far more than by mere abstract teaching or doctrine. Man 
needs, also, an embodiment of doctrine, and a personal exponent 
and example of truth, especially moral and religious truth. 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 367 

Man needs a personal object of faith, devotion, gratitude and 
love in morals and religion. All revolutions and reformations 
have had such leaders, such exponents, such objects of faith, 
devotion and love. Men must have them, and millions are 
led by devotion to them into the right, for every one who is 
controlled by al)stract truth alone. All religions have had, 
also, their incarnations, manifestations of divinity in human 
form. Such incarnation, such taking on of humanity by 
divinity, is necessary to divest religion of that overpowering 
influence, that the infidels object to. It is needed to give man 
confidence to approach God. If this sacrifice that man needs, 
this atonement, this expiation, this mediator, this personal 
leader, this embodiment and exponent of doctrine, this per- 
sonal object of faith, devotion and love, be an incarnation or 
a manifestation of divinity in human form, these ideas are 
then made universal and absolute — they are perfected. The 
human side or element gives confidence to approach God, and 
gives devotion and love. The divine side or element gives 
confidence in the sufficiency of the sacrifice, atonement and 
mediator. 

Forgiveness of sin is a cardinal idea of all religions, and 
sacrifice and atonement are universal as means of obtaining 
forgiveness. The skeptic objects to this idea of forgiveness of 
sin. He assures us that it is untaught by nature, and utterly 
contradicted by nature, and that it is a violation of the order of 
nature, and that it is unjust and a destruction of all justice, 
law and morality. His objections and illustrations are all 
taken from physical nature. There is physical law and moral 
law. If a man violates physical law the penalty always fol- 
lows, though there is recuperative power, and remedy in this 
case, if there is reformation. If we violate moral hiM', the 
penalty as certainly follows. It is of two kinds. The sub- 
jective, or that which inheres in the sin, and follows transgres- 
sion as certainly as the shadow follows the substance, such as 
remorse, guilt, sense of degradation, self-reproach, injury to 
moral and spiritual nature, and the cultivation of evil habits 
and propensities. Also the objective or that inflicted b}^ the 
person sinned against, such as the loss of the love, confidence, 
lavors and society of the persons sinned against, and the in- 
fliction of positive evil or penalty. In the case of a dis- 
obedient child, the parent inflicts the latter class of penalties. 
So does society and human governments. So does God also. 
The first inheres in tlie sin itself, and God inflicts this also. 
If a father has two children that have both disobeyed him 
alike, and one is rebellious and defiant, and the other penitent 
and wishing tp reform and be restoi-ed to favor, lie can not, 



368 THE PKOBLF.M OF PROBLEMS. 

and will not, treat both alike. He can and must remove the 
objective penalty of sin inflicted by himself, but the subjec- 
tive must be removed by the reformed life of the offender. 

In like manner society should remove the objective penalty 
in case of reformation, but the subjective, the ofiender must 
remove by the right kind of life. Then, regarding God as our 
Father in heaven, he can and will pardon us if we repent and 
reform, and remove the objective penalty, but the subjective 
we can remove only by living a holy life. In this sense we 
w^ork out our salvation from sin. The objections of the skeptic 
to these cardinal ideas of religion are based on the laws and 
analogies of the physical world that are utterly inapplicable. 
He overlooks the laws and analogies of the moral and spiritual 
world that are alone applicable. He also perverts and mis- 
states these cardinal ideas of religion. He drags, the spiritual 
world down into the material world, and buries it up in the 
material world. If his theory of the universe be true, the man 
who helps an unfortunate, a diseased, or degraded person, or 
cures a disease, violates law, and is as much a criminal as one 
who helps a criminal to escape the sheriff. His view and ex- 
amination of nature is most defective and distorted. 

Then these great ideas are not a violation of the perfect 
order of nature, nor patching up of nature, but a necessary 
part, and the highest part, of a perfect order of nature. Man 
has ever attempted to embody these cardinal ideas in a system 
of religion, with dogma or truth to be believed, and worship or 
prayer, praise, and acts of adoration and devotion, and discipline, 
or rules for conduct and life. He has always given to this religion 
ordinances and an organization and officers. Governments and 
societies must have organization, ordinances, and officers ; they 
are necessary to their efficiency, wants, and very existence. 
The same holds true of religion. Ordinances accomplish the 
same purposes in religion and embody some great truth. 
Organization is necessary to systematic work, and officers as 
leaders. Then following a true inductive philosophy, and taking 
the data fui-nished by man's moral and religious nature, as the 
subject of investigation, and its great intuitions as our standard, 
we can no more reject these cardinal ideas of religion than we 
can gravitation or crystallization in the physical world. 
Science may elevate these great religious ideas, and strip them 
of errors that man has attached to them, but it can not eradi- 
cate them. It may develop and amplify them, but it can not 
eliminate them. A. man would only demonstrate his own folly 
who would reject all idea of gravitation or chemical action, 
because he can not find them in the moral and religious world. 
But his folly would be no greater than that of certain would- 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 369 

be philosophers of our own day, who reject these cardinal re- 
ligious ideas because they are not deposited as a residuum in 
their retorts or crucibles, and they can not be weighed in their 
scales, or dissected with their scalpels. A true inductive philo- 
sophy would give them more certainty than the results of the 
physical world, for it is only by means of them that the results 
of the physical world can be reached. 

If we have accomplished our purpose, we have shown the 
fallacy and utter lack of true philosophical method in the 
course of the materialist, and shown that by a true philosophic 
method, these great cardinal ideas of religion are verified and 
justified, and it is only by means of them that a true science of 
the universe can be constructed. Physical science without 
them, no more gives us a true science of nature, than a treatise 
on anatomy would be a description of man. As in one case 
the mind, the spirit, that for which the body exists, would be 
omitted; so in the other the moral and religious element of 
nature, that for which physical nature exists, would be omitted. 
It is only the lifeless corpse, and not the living organization, 
that the materialist examines, and as the corpse decays under 
the investigation of the anatomist, so nature decays and rots 
under the search of the materialist into irreligion, godlessness, 
selfishness, brutality and crime. In science as in religion, "The 
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and a knowledge 
of His holy will the foundation of all understanding." 



370 THE piiobLe.>[ of :peoblems. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Evolution and the Permanence of Religion. 

In this, our concluding chapter, we will inquire whether the 
permanence of any system of religion be compatible with the 
evolution and progress claimed by modern thought. All will 
concede that man began in a condition of child-like simplicity, 
and ignorance, and that he has progressed in arts, science, and 
civilization. All will concede that he will continue to progress 
so long as he makes a right use of the means of progress around 
him. What efiect will this continual progress have on the per- 
manence of Christianity or any system of religion ? Some con- 
tend that tiie result of this progress will be the elimination of 
all religion out of human life and thought. Such persons con- 
tend that religion is a perversion of man's veneration and mar- 
velousness or spirituality. The fallacy of such an assumption 
is apparent, when we remember that all other intuitions or 
elements of our nature are to be elevated, purified and ampli- 
fied. But the religious element is to be eradicated, and we 
can see no reason why, except that the wish is father to the 
thought. They wish to get rid of the restraint of these great 
religious ideas. 

In our last chapter we demonstrated that these cardinal re- 
ligious ideas are a necessary part of our nature, and the high- 
est part of our nature. Progress will not change man's nature 
except by development. It will not eradicate the regnant 
element of man's own nature. It will only elevate, purify, 
and enlarge it. As man progresses and acquires greater 
knowledge and power, he will have still greater need of the 
regulative influence of this regnant element of his nature. A s 
we increase the speed of machinery we do not dispense with 
the need of regulating control. We increase the necessity for 
it. 

Religion has ever been the animating principle of all great 
reforms, revolutions and movements of the feuman mind. All 
law, government, philanthropy, and exalted enthusiasm has 
owed its origin to religion ; has been based on it, and animated 
and controlled by it. It has furnished to poetry, painting, 
sculpture, and art, their animating principle and their most 



l.vOLUTIOX AND THE PERMANENCE OF RELIGION. 371 

rxalted tliemes. If man had been divested, in his infajicy, of 
this life-giving power, would the race have produced a Gaute- 
nia, a Zoroaster, an Abraham, a Moses, a Solomon, a David, 
a Socrates, a Plato, a Paul, a Luther, a Howard, a Homer, a 
Dante, a Virgil, a Milton, a Locke, Newton or Bacon ? Would 
mere materialism have given us the Iliad, JEneid, a Paradise 
Lost, a Book of Job, a Book of Psalms, or the morality of Moses, 
Socrates, Plato, Solomon, Paul, or Christ? The automaton — 
the caoutchouc man of Faber — is as much man as the ideal man 
of modern materialism, without moral or religious nature. If 
the anatomist were to insist on expelling from the body all 
mind, life, and spirit, as necessary to a proper study of man, 
and then insist that his classified statements concerning the de- 
caying skeleton are a complete science of man, he would be 
guilty of no greater madness than is attempted by modern 
science, so-called. Progress will no more eliminate religioii 
out of man's nature or life and thought, than anatomy will 
eliminate life or the mind out of the body. As a true science 
of man gives to the spirit the highest and most important place 
and regards the body as the servant of the mind, so does a true 
science of human progress gives to religion the highest and a 
controlling influence in the life of the race. 

There remains one more question: "Can any system of 
I'eligion remain the permanent religion of the race if man 
continues to progress?" Will not the race outgrow any sys- 
tem of religion in its progress? Will not the permanence of 
any system be a barrier in the way of progress? AVill not 
such a system at last check human progress, at a certain 
stage, and petrify it at that point? Must not man construct 
for himself new systems of religion, or at least enlarge and 
improve what he has by adding to it, as he does in science? 

Truth is of two kinds, the accidental and partial, and the 
universal and eternal. Law and religion are of three kinds : 
Negative law, or that which merely forbids what is wrong ; 
positive statutory law, which undertakes to specify in detail 
all duty and how it is to be performed; universal law, or a 
law of general truths, universally a.pplicable principles. The 
first is suited to children and the childhood of the race. 
The second is disciplinary in character, and is suited to youth 
and the youth of the race. The third is suited to manhood 
and the manhood of the race. 

Mankind can outgrow a system of negative precepts, for 
as the child soon needs instruction and discipline, and so does 
the race. Man can outgrow a system of positive statutory 
law, just as the youth outgrows such a system of discipline 
and restraint as he approaches manhood. Then systems of 



372 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

religion of either of these two characters, man could and 
would outgrow, in his progress. Man has outgrown such 
systems of law in religion, wherever he has progressed and 
advanced in civilization and knowledge; and he will always 
outgrow all such systems. 

But a system of general principles, a system of universally 
and eternally applicable truths, can not be outgrown by any 
course of progression, no matter how vast in extent or pro- 
tracted in duration. Let us illustrate: In their attempts to 
develop the various sciences, men at first observed phenomena 
and recorded their observations. They speculated concerning 
the reason of phenomena, and suggested hypothesis or guesses 
concerning the cause and reason of the phenomena. Soon, 
phenomena were observed that did not accord with the 
hypothesis, and it was cast to one side, and another substi- 
tuted. Thus men discarded theory after theory, as they out- 
grew them, until the great underlying principle, the great 
central truth, was discovered. Then all phenomena crystal- 
lized around this central truth into a system, and a science 
was arranged. These great central truths, these universal 
ideas, these underlying principles, man never outgrows. He 
may learn more of their scope and grasp, and the amplitude 
of their application, but he never outgrows them. Man will 
never outgrow the Copernican theory of the universe. He 
may learn more of its infinite application to the boundless 
systems of the universe, through systems of systems, to in- 
finity, but he will never outgrow it. In like manner man 
will never outgrow the law of gravitation. He may learn 
more of its scope and infinite application in the boundless 
universe, but he will never progress beyond it. All man's 
subsequent progress will lead him through wider and wider 
ramifications, but it will never lead him beyond them, be his 
progress what it may. He can not outgrow universal truths. 

The same generalization will apply to religion. Man can 
and has outgrown systems of negative commands, or positive 
statutory laws; but he can not outgrow a system of universal 
truth or general principles. A system of religion that makes 
absolute and eternal the catholic and cardinal religious ideas, 
God and his attributes, creation and government by Him, 
spiritual life and existences, good and evil, right and wrong, 
responsibility and accountability, reward and punishment, 
providence, prayer, and answer to prayer, revelation, inspira- 
tion, prophecy, miracle, sacrifice, atonement, expiation, me- 
diation, personal leader, embodiment and exponent of doc- 
trine in rehgion, object of faith, devotion and love, will be 



EVOLUTION AND THE TERMANENCE OF RELIGION. 373 

universal and eternal. An incarnation will make these ideas 
infinite and eternal. 

If this religion contains a perfect system of reformation of 
life, or spiritual regeneration, and forgiveness of sin, and a 
perfect system of absolute truth to be believed, veneration, 
praise and worship, for a perfect object of worship, and a per 
feet rule for life, and complete organization and ordinances, 
susceptible of universal application, it can not be outgrown by 
progress. Man may learn more of the scope and grasp of 
these universal principles, and learn to apply them better to 
his progress and advancement, but he will never outgrow 
them, any more than he will the universal and eternal in 
science. Then the question concerning Christianity, or any 
system of religion, is: Is it a system of universal and eternal 
truths ? Are its principles susceptible of universal and 
eternal application? If this be the case, it can not be out- 
grown. 

Did space permit, the author would apply these general 
hints to Christianity, and elaborate them more fully. Should 
the present work meet with a reception that encourages him 
to believe that good can be accomplished by his efforts, he 
will follow this work with another one, in which he will de- 
velop what is merely suggested here. In it will be discussed 
more fully than was possible in this book: What was man's 
primitive condition? Does man need a revealed religion? 
What should be its basic ideas? How should it be given and 
developed? Is Christianity, in its basic ideas, the religion 
man needs? Has it been given to man as his needs and na- 
ture demanded? What has Christianity done for man? Can 
man outgrow Christianity? etc. These and kindred topics 
will be discussed. 

There is a line of thought that never has been presented in 
a connected view that forms one of the strongest defenses that 
can be made for the religion of Christ. With the hope that 
he has been instrumental in leading the reader to an appre- 
hension of infinite and eternal truth, and a j)rayer that all 
may be made free by the truth, he bids all farewell. 



APPENDIX 



TytidalVs Statement of Evolution Hypothesis. 

We can not resist asking Tyndall, since he has avowed his in- 
clination to recognize in matter all possibilities of being, and his 
inclination to accept the stupendous hypothesis expressed in the 
quotation from Mm: How came all these existences to which he 
refers, if once latent, to be changed into the potential? What 
changed what was merely latent into the potential? What 
changes what is potential into the actual? Accepting so stu- 
pendous an assumption does not relieve, but rather increases the 
difficulty that is still to be surmounted. 

Anthropomorphism of Scientists. 

One of the charges made by evolutionists against the theory 
of creation, is that it anthropomorphizes the Infinite Cause, or 
Source of all things. The objectionable anthropomorphism is not 
in the theory of creation, but in their caricature of it. A favor- 
ite subterfuge is to speak of the theory of creation, as though it 
necessarily subjected Infinite Reason and its acts to all the lim- 
itations, ignoran@e and imperfections of finite reason. Man has 
to search for truth and ideas, and to compare them, in his reason- 
ing, and to study out the end that is most desirable, and the plan 
that will best accomplish it, and the best means to be used. He 
often blunders and fails, and has to contrive and toil to remedy 
it, and is a mere shaper or tinker, and not a maker or creator. 
It is tacitly assumed, by these objectors to the theory of creation, 
that Infinite Reason is subject to the same limitations and im- 
perfections. Creation is not in accordance with law, and can not 
be made to accord with true scientific ideas. Government and 
providence by the Creator are in violation of all law and scien- 
tific order. They are an afte'r thought of an intelligence that failed 
in the first effort, and an attempt to patch up a mistake. Tele- 
ology implies studying and contriving and tinkering of processes, 
to meet ends that have to be studied out, and toiled for, by effort. 
In this way an attempt is made to load down the idea of creation 
by reason, government by the Creator, and providence with ab- 
(374^ 



APPENDIX. 375 

surdities that will break it down and destroy it. It is a most 
unfair and unjust perversion of the idea. 

A child who does not know the alphabet, and who wants to 
read a book, has to learn laboriously the alphabet, what sounds 
the letters represent, how to combine the sounds into sylla- 
bles, and the syllables into Avords, and words into sentences. 
He has to learn the various meanings and uses of words, 
and by comparison determine the particular meaning each 
word has in each case of its use, and by uniting these meanings 
he reaches the thought, and by combining thoughts he reaches 
his end or object. Huxley glances over the page, and nearly all 
the processes that the child went through so laboriously he omits 
entirely. Others he performs immediately or intuitively, and 
unconsciously to himself. It would be gross folly to say that 
because the child reaches the thought so laboriously, Huxley 
must. And it is a still more gross absurdity to assume that In- 
finite Eeason must be subject to the limitations and imperfections 
of finite reason. Infinite Reason knows immediately and abso- 
lutely, and acts accordingly. In teleology in nature. Infinite 
Eeason uses perfect means to accomplish, infallibly, the end, 
without absolute knowledge, and without any imperfection. It 
is in accordance Avith law, the highest law, law of Infinite Eea- 
son. Because ends are accomplished by means in creation, it 
does not follow that there is the studying, contriving and labor- 
ious thought there is in man's works. It is done infallibly, with 
perfect and immediate knowledge, and in accordance with the 
highest law, law of absolute reason. So also government and 
providence are a necessary part of the highest law, law of govern- 
ment by intelligence over intelligences. They are a part of its 
perfection, and necessary to its perfection, and not a patching of 
a failure. 

Objections to Nebular Hypothesis. 

As the author has been criticised as almost insolent, and cer- 
tainly audacious in venturing to question the nebular hypothe- 
sis, he will restate his reasons: I. It is but a hypothesis, a 
guess. II. We have not any knowledge of matter in its primor- 
dial constitution, or initial condition, in a nebulous condition. We 
have no knowledge of matter charged by heat or any other pro- 
cess of nature, or held by any process of nature, in a gaseous 
condition, or fire-mist, for any length of time. Indeed, we have 
no knowledge of solids produced by any process of nature from 
what was primordially a gas. Our experience is just the con- 
trary. Gases are produced from solids. IH. There is assumed 
as known, what is unknown, and can not, from the nature of the 
question, be knoAvn. It is not known, and can not be known, 
that our solar system was once a nebulous cloud, or cloud of 
fiery vapor. IV. The assumption involves the impossible, con- 
tradictory and absurd. If all absolute space Avas pervaded by 
this fire-mist, Avhere Avas the heat radiated to Avhen it Avas 
cooling? If but a portion, Avhat held this repellent mass in that 
portion of space ? Why was not the heat all radiated and the 



376 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

mass absolutely cold and remain so during eternity ? When ap- 
plied to the formation of our earth, it is, as we have shown, a 
mass of absurdities. It contradicts known facts. It is incon- 
sistent with the idea of the properties of the elementary sub- 
stances, and chemical affinity, and the idea of life ever appearing 
on our planet. It contradicts clear laws of mechanical pressure, 
and repellent force of such repellent mass, and many other ab- 
surdities already enumerated elsewhere. For these reasons the 
author will at least venture to question this nebular hypothesis, 
or cloudy guess. 

The Propaganda of Atheistic Scientists. 

While no one will object to freedom of speech and thought, or 
to the atheist and other unbelievers advocating and disseminating 
their sentiments in a proper manner, yet certain things are prac- 
ticed that are, at least, questionable as matters of taste and 
propriety, and of doubtful honesty. We have so-called scientific 
associations and societies ; we have scientific lecturers and lec- 
tures; scientific authors and books; scientific series; scientific 
papers and journals ; we have also literary journals and writers 
and lectures ; we have political papers and authors also. No one 
doubts that so all-pervading an influence as religion, has its bear- 
ings on science, literature and politics, and that each of these 
has its relations to religion. These bearings and relations should 
be carefully studied and honestly and fearlessly stated. But one 
can scarcely see the necessity for officers and lecturers, before 
scientific associations, going clear out of their way to make 
attacks on religion, or make flings at it. Nor for their pursuing 
such a course to such an extent that scientific associations are 
almost synonyms in the public minds with infidel propaganda. 
One can see no necessity for Tyndall and Huxley and others 
availing themselves of the eclat of an annual presidential address 
to assail religion. One can see no necessity for a paper, claiming 
to be scientific, going clear out of its way to make an attack on 
religion, as was done by the only weekly that arrogates to itself 
the term " Scientific." Nor for the continued tone of sneers and 
insults there are in some of our large dailies, whenever religion 
is referred to. A preacher is a "gospel slinger," and a church a 
" gospel shop," in the low slang of one of these corrupters of 
public morals and taste. Then the cardinal ideas of religion are 
openly assailed or covertly sneered at in nearly every number. 
The worst disseminators of infidelity to-day are some of the lead- 
ing dailies of our leading cities, and a majority of them can be 
jncluded in the list. The same is true, to some extent, of several 
of our literary papers and magazines. The cardinal ideas of 
Christianity are assailed, ridiculed and caricatured in story and 
editorial and the heavier articles. Several of our literary writers 
never speak of religion, but to stab it. One well known writer 
never has a villain in his stories, but he is a priest or church 
officer, or noted member. His heroes are unbelievers. Eeligion 
always figures as cant and hypocrisy on his pages. ]Ie is a type 
of a large class. 



APPENDIX. 377 

We have a large class of lecturers, literary, scientific and non- 
descript. Many use the advantage thus given, to openly assail 
or covertly ridicule or caricature religion, and disseminate infi- 
delity. We have magazines calling themselves popularly scien- 
tific, that are fanatical and bigoted propagandists of infidelity. 
We have international series of books called scientific, that are 
atheistic and bigotedly infidel. We are not questioning the 
right of these persons to entertain such sentiments, or to dissem- 
inate them, but we do question the taste and propriety, and the 
honesty of the way in which it is done. When an association 
professes to be scientific, let it be such. If it is an infidel propa- 
ganda, let it avow what it is. Infidelity and science are n(^t 
synonymous, nor is religion an enemy to science. A man can be 
scientific in the truest and broadest sense, and not assail religion, 
and indeed be religious, as thousands of the best scientists are 
examples. If lecturers and ofiicers of such associations wish to 
assail religion, let them call their efibrt by its right name, and 
not steal the livery of science to serve infidelity. If Proctor is 
to lecture on astronomy, let him do so, and not step away out to 
one side and wander off" to deceive and insult his audience by a 
rehash of Paine's stale objections to the xxiv. chapter of Num- 
bers. If the editors of a scientific journal or a medical journal 
want to assail religion, let them honestly publish an infidel pa- 
per,' and not do as several of these have done, get patronage 
under the garb of medicine or science, and then peddle infidelity 
under such license. When we buy a daily newspaper or a politi- 
cal journal, we do not want to be compelled to load our tables 
with, and place before our families the baldest infidelity, and 
slang and blackguardism, in connection with the news we sup- 
posed we were purchasing. Let such men sail under their true 
colors, and tell us what they have for us when they offer their 
wares. A gentleman once had placed before him a dish of pickled 
pears. On looking carefully into it, he detected a drowned 
mouse. Calling his hostess to him, he said, " Madam, I know 
that pickled pears are good. Pickled mice may be as good, or 
far better. They may be according to your taste. I am not 
questioning the fact, or the accuracy of your taste. But as a 
matter of personal right, I must be allowed to exercise my own 
taste, when it comes to my own eating. I prefer to have pickled 
mice and pickled pears served in separate dishes. Then I am al- 
lowed to exercise my undoubted right to choose what I will eat." 
So we say to these parties. We know that science, politics, lit- 
erature and art are good. We know that books, lectures and pa- 
pers that are really scientific or literary or political are good. 
Infidelity may be good. It may be the most excellent of all 
things, according to their taste. We question neither the taste 
nor the excellence of what they love. But as a matter of personal 
right on our part, and honesty on theirs, we insist that they serve 
them to us in different dishes, and each under its right name. 
There is impudence in the cool, monopoly of science, and the 
terms science, and scientific, by such associations, publications 
and men. Some of our best scientists entertain no such views, 
32 



378 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

but the opposite. There are at least two sides to the question. 
If they must use the terms, let them prefix the proper adjectives, 
and call themselves atheistic scientific associations, papers, lec- 
turers, books or series. Tliii-; would be honest, modest and true, 
and their present course is neither. It is especially arrogant, 
when we remember that the favorite liobbies of such men are 
theories at best, guesses, hypotheses in reality. Then there is a 
narrow-minded bigotry and fanaticism among scientists, as great 
as ever characterized any religious bigot. The fanatical zeal with 
which Youmans or Fiske will defend any thing connected with 
these hobbies, the indignation they display towards one who dares 
to question them, the sneers of Huxley and others, in speaking 
of religion and religious persons, is the same heat that kindled 
in the opposite party the fires that burned Bruno and Servetus. 
It is fashionable now to sneer at priests and preaching, and to 
sneer at the idea of their ever having done any good, and at ser- 
mons and the literature of priests. The rostrum and lecture are 
to take the place of pulpit and sermon. The intelligence of 
priests, and their education and their place in history, will com- 
pare Avith that of any class of men. Their themes, religion, 
morality and righteousness, are the highest men have ever inves- 
tigated. Their books and sermons, in talent, usefulness and im- 
portance, sustain the same relation to literature that their themes do 
to thought. Every Sunday, all over Christendom, hundreds of 
thousands of men, embracing a large portion of the talented and 
educated of this generation, are presenting, for the consideration 
of men, the most important and exalted themes of human thought. 
This has been the case for many hundred years. The work of the 
rostrum now set up as a rival, is now, and ever will be, but as a 
drop to the ocean in importance and influence. 

When we look at the history of the world we find that strug- 
gles for religious freedom were headed by believers and readers 
of the Bible, during all modern times. Political and mental 
freedom have been the results of such struggles, and not its 
cause. The history of Switzerland, Germany, France, Holland, 
England and the United States prove this. We owe to the Prot- 
estant Reformation, and not to infidelity, our freedom, progress 
and civilization. We close this thought by calling attention to 
the covert hostility to religion displayed in what are called pop- 
ular science primers. In some, atheism is boldly presented as 
science. In others, religion is covertly caricatured or sneered at. 
In all there is a careful ignoring of all idea of intelligence in the 
cause or control of the phenomena presented. Matter and force, 
natural forces and laws, are studiously presented as the only 
cause, and all-sufficient cause. If there is not an attempt to dis- 
prove all connection of intelligence with the phenomena, a care- 
ful effort is made to show that matter and force are sufficient, and 
no intelligence is needed in the cause. The reader is led up face 
to face with the forces of nature and left in intended atheism. 
If there is recognition of creation, or intelligence in the origin 
or control of phenomena, by the author, contrary to the expecta- 
tions of the projectors of the series, as was the case in Quatre- 



APPENDIX. ' 379 

f{iges' ^^ Ethnology,''^ the master-spirit must administer the correc- 
tive in an atheistic appendix, as was done in that case. It is 
time the world demolished this Trojan horse, and compelled the 
knavish Greeks concealed in it to fight in the open field under 
their true colors. 

Is the God-Idea an Intuition f 

If we use the term God-idea in the sense of a tendency to wor- 
ship something, an aspiration and desire for a superior being or 
beings, a recognition in worship, aspirations and tendency of such 
superior being, it is a primary intuition. If we use the term as 
including a formulated theory of creation, government and wor- 
ship, it is not a primary intuition, but the result of a course of 
reasoning. It is an universal affirmation of reason, and an intui- 
tion in only the secondary sense, a catholic or universal idea. 

If we use the term intuition in the sense of an universal, cath- 
olic idea of reason, the God -idea is an intuition, both in the sense 
of an aspiration or tendency to worship, and of a formal theory 
of creation, government and worship, as man's superstitions and 
religions prove. 

If we use the term intuition in the primary sense of a primary 
or immediate intuition, then the idea of God is^an intuition only 
in the sense of a tendency to worship, an aspiration toward a su- 
perior being, and the recognition, it may be vague and indefinite, 
of the existence of such being. 

But if by the term God we mean a perfect and correct idea of 
his nature and character, especially of his moral attributes, it 
must be the result of revelation. It is in this sense that the re- 
ligious world use the term God, when they say the God-idea 
must be revealed. 

If the persons who dispute so much over this, would define 
clearly what they mean by intuition, and the God-idea, there 
would be but little controversy. The dispute is the result of 
using words in entirely different senses. 

Involution must always precede Evolution to render Evolution 
Possible. 

The writer has, in various ways, endeavored to arrange before 
the reader the fallacies of the evolutionist. He begins by evad- 
ing, as much as he can, of the difficulty to be met. He quietly 
ignores much, and generally the essential part. He leads the 
mind back over a long course of investigation to a choatic, neb- 
ulous beginning, and assumes all that his theory requires, and in 
the confusion of the reader or hearer this is unnoticed. He 
quietly deposits in these crudities, matter and force, all he wants 
to draw out of them. Or he confuses the mind with a multitude 
of strange phenomena, and assumes that they cover all the ele- 
ments of the problem, and assumes that his speculations on them, 
which are largely assumptions, unwarranted by the phenomena, 
explain the entire case. Or he begins and furtively and illicitly 



380 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

steals, grain by grain, during an almost infinite time, the whole 
chain of causation, all he needs, and foists it quietly and fur- 
tively into the course of nature, as his necessities demand. In 
either case there is a confession that mere matter and force and 
their essential properties are not a sufficient basis for the evolu- 
tion he claims. We have endeavored to show that to these con- 
ceptions other things must be added. There must be deposited 
in them other elements. The elementary substances and their 
characteristics must be there. These, and the essential properties 
of matter and force, must be co-ordinated. Chemical affinity and 
its laws and their co-ordination must be there. There must be 
wrought out in all this the most exalted ideas of reason. Life 
must be deposited, and life must appropriate the matter of the 
cell or germ, and co-ordinate and subordinate physical force. All 
this is an involution, and not an evolution. The greater portion 
of what is called evolution is involution, and must precede evolu- 
tion to render evolution possible. From the rudimental concep- 
tion of matter and force, until we reach the vegetable and animal 
germs, and until the germ is ready for development, the process is 
involution. If we concede the efficiency of the conditions that 
the evolutionist claims produce his evolution, these conditions 
must be deposited in matter and force, and the arrangement of 
matter and force»into these conditions is an involution. The ev- 
olution is only seen in the development of each individual plant 
or animal, and in the development of varieties out of species; or 
of species out of the primordial forms, if we concede the latter to 
be true. Then nearly the entire process is an involution, and 
this involution must precede the evolution, before the evolution 
can be possible; and the involution must be planned, conducted 
and controlled by intelligence. Intelligence alone can involve 
the factors of the evolution, and conduct and control such a pro- 
cess of involution after it has planned it. Then a radical fallacy 
of the evolutionist is, calling the entire process an evolution, 
when nearly all of it is an involution. Another is to overlook the 
fact that this involution must precede the evolution to render it 
possible, and the fallacy of fallacies is to overlook the truth that 
this involution must be devised by intelligence, controlled by in- 
telligence, and conducted up to the point of evolution by intel- 
ligence. 

Three Ways of getting rid of tJie Idea of Intelligence in the Cause 
of Evolution. 

I. Leading the mind back to so chaotic a conception of matter 
and force as to confuse it, and then either boldly assume or de- 
posit in them all that is to be evolved out of them, or take refuge 
in the unknowable, and deposit in this myth all that is needed to 
produce the evolution. II. Confuse and dazzle the mind with what 
nature can do, assuming that nature can do all this without any 
relation to intelligence. III. Show Avhat nature does in one par- 
ticular, and then spread that over the universe as an explanation 
of all existence and phenomena. Tyndall and Spencer pursue 



APPENDIX. 381 

the first method. Tyndall boldly assumes and deposits in matter 
all he wants to draw out of it. Spencer takes refuge in that 
phantom, the unknowable, and places in it all he wants as ground 
for phenomena, but intelligence. That he rejects in violation of 
all reason. Darwin pursues the second method. Huxley, in his 
late demonstration, pursued the third method. 

Beasons why certain Tinbes have been Pronounced Atheists. 

I. Persona making inquiry have been so ignorant of the lan- 
guage of the tribes, that querist and the one answering did not 
understand each other. II. Or they presented theological specu- 
lations concerning God, and because the persons Avere ignorant of 
such ideas, pronounced them atheists. III. Or they confounded 
ignorance of the one God, or the God of revelation, with atheism, 
or ignorance of all objects of worship. This is the principal cause 
of these tribes being called atheists. IV. Or the' savage merely 
understood by the God inquired after, the deity of the tribe of 
the inquirer. When he said he knew nothing of the God of the 
querist, the latter understood it as ignorance of all object ©f 
worship; when the savage had, perhaps, an elaborate system of 
worship. V. Or their religion was destitute of certain elements 
found in most religions. Perhaps it had no temples, or no priest- 
hood, or acts of worship like prayer or praise. VI. Or their 
superstition would not allow them to name or talk of their 
gods. Every atheistic tribe (supposed to be so) has been found 
to have superstition, and that the mistake arose from one of these 
causes. 

Another Subterfuge of Evolutionist. 

It is a very common thing with the evolutionist, when an ob- 
jection is urged to any position of his theory, to retort dogmati- 
cally that evolution does not teach or involve what is objected 
to, and often the objector is taunted with not understanding what 
he is talking about, and impudently told that he had better study 
and understand evolution before he ventures to urge objections 
to it. As this is never followed by a statement of what is the 
teaching of evolution, the retort is but an uncourteous evasion. 
Huxley wonders at the marvelous flexibility of the Hebrew text 
that admits of so many and so different interpretations. Students 
of evolution have far more reason to marvel at the wonderful 
flexibility of the unerring, inflexible records of nature, as they 
are called by the scientist, when each one presents a different in- 
terpretation, and often many and conflicting interpretations in 
his own writings or lectures, and each and all of them can, as ne- 
cessity demands, be rejected as not being the teaching of this in- 
flexible record, though they were presented as such. The inter- 
preter of the Hebrew text, not only denies the interpretations that 
he opposes, but he is courteous and honest enough to present 
what he thinks is the real interpretation. In this, he is more 
courteous, honest, and courageous th-an the evolutionist. Let 
persons criticising evolution meet this discourteous evasion, by 



382 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

demanding what is the real teaching of evolution, and the evasion 
can soon be exposed. The author insists as due to truth, and de- 
manded by courtesy and honesty, that critics condemning any 
statement in this book, as not a fair statement of evolution, not 
only deny, but state what is the teaching of evolution. 

Matter and Force not Self-existent, hut the Creations of Mind. 

The issue between the theist and the atheist can be presented 
thus : There are existences, mineral, vegetable, animal, and ra- 
tional, now in being. They did not cause themselves, but have 
a derived existence. Then as " Ex nihilo nihil fit — Out of nothing, 
nothing comes," something must have existed forever as their 
cause, or source of their being. Either a series of existences 
such as we have now, extends back eternally, or something ex- 
isted before the series of existences now in being came into being, 
as their cause. Every thing that exists now, is finite, conditioned, 
contingent, dependent, and perishable. Nothing that we see, caused 
itself. The finite, the contingent, the conditioned, the dependent, 
the perishable can not be self-existent, independent, eternal, and 
self-sustaining. Nor can an infinite series of such existences. 
Such a series would be an absurdity, and impossible. Nor can an 
infinite number of such existences. If these properties of self- 
existence, independence, and self-sustenance be not in the indi- 
vidual existences, no aggregation can evolve out of them what is 
not in them. " Ex nihilo ni/iiljit." Then something self-existent, 
independent, and self-sustaining must have eternally existed as 
the origin of all that exists, or there must be something absolute, 
uncaused, unconditioned, and necessary, that has eternally ex- 
isted as the ground and source of the finite, conditioned, depend- 
ent, contingent, and perishable that exists. The issue between 
theist and atheist is; What is the necessary, absolute, uncaused, 
unconditioned being or substance? What is it that is the self- 
existent, independent, self-sustaining and eternal ? What is the 
ground, source, origin, or cause of all existences and phenomena ? 
This is the problem of problems, that determines all systems of 
science, philosophy, and thought. The theist affirms that abso- 
lute intelligence, or mind, or spirit, ifi the absolute, the uncondi- 
tioned, the uncaused, the necessary being; that mind or spirit 
alone is self-existent, independent, self-sustaining, and eternal. 
The atheist, to have an adequate basis for existences, and phe- 
nomena, and for evolution, if he be an advocate of evolution, 
must affirm that matter and force, blind, irrational, insensate 
matter and force, are self-existent, independent, self-sustaining 
and eternal — that blind, irrational, insensate matter and force 
are the unconditioned, the absolute, the uncaused, and necessary, 
and the ground and origin of all existences and phenomena. Also 
that the essential properties of matter and force, are eternally in- 
herent in them. Also that the original elementary substances of 
matter are self-existent, eternal, independent, and self-sustaining, 
and that their essential characteristics are so ; and that the laws 
of nature, of which he speaks, are self-existent, independent, eter- 
nal, and self-sustaining. Then by the action, interaction, and re- 



APPENDIX. 383 

action of these elementary substances and their characteristics, 
and of matter and force, and their essential properties on each 
other, in accordance with these laws, all existences come into be- 
ing. It is a common course of the evolutionist to begin and go 
back, through rational, animal, vegetable, and chemically ar- 
ranged matter, to mere matter and force without these. The mind 
has become bewildered by the long course, and confused by the 
chaotic cloudy things called matter and force, presented for its 
consideration, and like one in the dark in a haunted house, is 
ready to believe and accept almost any thing. Tyndall asserts 
we have in these nebulous nondescripts the potencies of all be- 
ing. Spencer confuses the mind with sonorous phrases, such as 
heterogeneity and homogeneity, differentiation and integration, 
etc., and conjures a universe into being with these cabalistic words. 
Let us, however, pause and look carefully around us, and in- 
quire whether there is not bald assumption, and assumption in 
contradiction to all reason in the starting point of the evolution- 
ist, in this primeval fog of nebula, or star-dust, or fire-mist, or what- 
ever he choses to call it. The atheist must prove: I. That 
blind, irrational, insensate matter and force can be self-existent, 
independent, self-sustaining and eternal. II. Prove that they 
actually and beyond a doubt are so. III. Prove that even if 
they are self-existent, independent, self-sustaining and eternal, 
they can be the origin and source of all existences and phe- 
nomena. IV. Prove that they are really and beyond doubt the 
origin and source of all existences and phenomena. It will not 
do, as is generally done, to assume that they are self-existent, 
independent and self-sustaining, for that is assuming the point at 
issue. Nor that they can be, or may be, for neither is sufficient 
basis for reasoning, and both are denied. Nor even if they are 
self-existent, independent and self-sustaining, that they are the 
source of all that exists, for that is the real issue that is con- 
tested. The atheistic evolutionist must demonstrate that matter 
and force, their essential properties, the elementary substances 
of matter, and their characteristics, and what he calls the laws 
of nature, are undoubtedly and actually self-existent, independ- 
ent, self-sustaining and eternal, and that they actually and un- 
doubtedly are the source of all that exists. An attempt to prove 
that matter and force are self existent, independent, eternal and 
self-sustaining, is sometimes made thus : 1. He assumes they are 
indestructible. II. Then they will have no end of existence. 
III. As they will have no end of existence, they can have had no 
beginning, or they are eternal and self-existent? To this the re- 
ply is easy : I. He does not know that they are absolutely in- 
destructible. He only knows that he can not destroy them. 
Can he prove that higher intelligence can not destroy them? 
II. Infinite Intelligent Power could make them indestructible by 
any power except himself III. Because Infinite Intelligence 
made them indestructible by any power except himself, and be- 
cause he permits them to exist for ever, does not prove they are 
self existent. IV. Even if they were indestructible, it does not 
follow that they had no beginning, and are self-existent. 



384 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

The reply of the theist to the position that matter and foree 
are self-existent, independent, self-sustaining and eternal, is: I. 
Matter and force (unless we include in the term force mind-force) 
can not from their very nature and constitution be self-existent, 
independent, self-sustaining and eternal. II. Matter and force 
are subordinate agents, subordinate to mind, and created articles, 
the creations of mind. III. Blind, irrational, insensate matter 
and force can not be the source and ground of all the existence 
and phenomena that exist. Even if we concede that matter and 
force and their essential properties, and the original elementary 
substances, and their characteristics are self-existent, independent, 
self-sustaining and eternal, we have no basis or source of the 
evolution claimed by the evolutionist. Blind, irrational, insen- 
sate matter and force and their physical, irrational, essential 
properties, and the elementary substances of matter, and their 
physical, irrational characteristics, could not originate, start or 
control the evolution claimed by the evolutionist, and bring into 
being the existences and phenomena now in existence. 

I. Matter is not self-existent and eternal — does not have nec- 
essary being. If we take the latest results of scientific research, 
and pass back to what it places before us as its elementary idea 
of matter, to its primordial constitution, its primordial molecules, 
they are of definite size and shape, and have definite character- 
istics. We can easily conceive how all this could be different. 
Hence, it is not necessary and eternal, or self-existent. Hence, 
the primordial molecular constitution of matter, matter in its 
primordial constitution, does not have necessary being, and is not 
seif-existent. II. Matter, in its primordial constitution, has a 
definite number of elementary substances. These have definite 
characteristics. Each has peculiar and definite properties. Each 
has peculiar and definite affinities. These elementary sub- 
stances, essential properties of matter, and peculiar characteristics 
of each substance, and its affinities, are arranged in exact mathe- 
matical proportions and law. All this can be conceived of as 
being different from what it is. Hence it is not necessary and 
self-existent. Then matter in its primordial constitution has not 
necessary being, and is not sell-existent. If it be claimed that 
this is not the primordial constitution of matter, will any one 
tell us what was back of it? What could be back of it? How 
could matter exist, or be thought of, without these characteris- 
tics here enumerated ? Will he describe it to us ? Can he think 
of it without these characteristics ? And if it did exist without 
them, in its primordial constitution, whence came they when they 
did appear ? The same holds true of force and its properties. 
They are in its primordial condition, co-ordinated and adjusted, 
and act in accordance with exact mathematical law in all respects. 
We can easily conceive of a different arrangement. Hence this 
is not necessary and self-existent. If it be objected that this is 
not the primordial constitution of force, will the objector tell 
what it was ? How could force exist, or how can we think of it 
without such co-ordination? The present co-ordination is the 
oiiiv one tiiat accords with reason, and the one reason would 



APPENDIX. 385 

give, but others are conceivable, and fortuity, which must have 
controlled, if there was no reason, could have given them. The 
one in accordance with reason obtains in the primordial consti- 
tution of force, and of matter also ; hence it is not self-existent. 

TI. Matter and force are subordinate agents, subordinate to 
mind, created articles, the creation of mind. The most rudimental 
or elementary idea of matter that science can give us, places it 
before us in its molecular constitution, and shows that its primor- 
dial molecules have definite size, shape, and characteristics. This 
is not self-existent and necessary. It has been derived from som.e 
source back of it. There is co-ordination, plan, method, system, 
and law in it. These have their only conceivable, thinkable 
ground in mind. Then mind was back of this primordial consti- 
tution of matter, and gave to it this first constitution, or absolute 
beginning. Matter is a subordinate agent, subordinate to mind, 
a created article, the creation of mind. In its primordial consti- 
tution matter has essential properties. These are co-ordinated in 
plan and by law. It has elementary substances. These are co- 
ordinated and arranged in accordance with mathematical propor- 
tion and law. These elementary substances have their peculiar 
characteristics. These express idea or thought. They are co-or- 
dinated and arranged in system, method, and law. This is not 
necessary. We can conceive of a different arrangement. It is not 
self-existent. But there are realized in this primordial constitu- 
tion some of the highest ideas of reason. It is in accordance with 
them. Fortuity of blind matter and force could not realize these 
ideas of reason in co-ordination, arrangement, adaptation, adjust- 
ment, law, method, system, and plan. Then matter is not self- 
existent or the result of fortuity in its primordial constitution. Ii 
is the creation of reason, realizing in its absolute primordial con- 
stitution ideas of reason. 

In the primordial constitution of force, its properties or charac- 
teristics are co-ordinated, arranged in method, system, and law in 
all respects — how, when, where, how long, how often, wdth what, 
energy, in what order of succession, with what rapidity it acts. In 
this are realized some of the most exalted ideas of reason, the most 
abstract ideas of pure reason. This is not self-existent, nor the 
result of fortuity. It is the result of reason that was back of the 
primordial constitution of force, and realized these ideas in such 
absolutely primordial constitution. Hence force is a created prod- 
uct, the creation of mind. If it be objected that this is not the 
primordial constitution of matter and force, let the objector tell 
us what was back of it? What was the primordial constitution 
of matter and force ? How could matter and force exist without 
these things? Where did they come from when they appeared, for 
they are now in being? Then we present to the materialist this 
dilemma. In his most rudimental, his initial conception of matter 
and force and their essential properties, there are realized ideas of 
reason. He can not think of matter and force without these ideas 
of reason. Then in his initial idea of matter and force in their 
absolutely primordial constitution, there must be realized ideas of 
reason. Or if he eliminates these ideas of reason, l.e renders mat- 

83 



386 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLE^IS. 

ter and force unthinkable, and removes them out of being. To 
get rid of reason and ideas of reason, in the primordial constitu- 
tion of matter and force, the materialist has to remove matter and 
force beyond thought and out of being, and reduce the universe 
to nonentity, and begin Avith nothing. The moment he brings 
matter and force into thought or being, he brings with them ideas 
of reason, that prove that they emanated from reason. Hence rea- 
son must be back of matter and force to give them being and ren- 
der their existence thinkable or possible. 

Even if we concede the self-existence of blind matter and force, 
and their irrational physical properties, and of the essential ele- 
ments of matters and their irrational physical characteristics, we 
have no adequate origin of the evolution claimed by the evolu- 
tionists. We have no adequate control of the course of evolution 
or the present order of things. We must place in the absolute 
beginning and primordial constitution co-ordination, adjustment, 
arrangement, order, system method, law, plan, or we can' have no 
start, no course, no result of evolution. Disorder can not evolve 
order. Unadjustment can not evolve adjustment. Absence of 
co-ordination can not evolve co-ordination. Unadaptation or for- 
tuity can not evolve adaptation. Absence of method can not 
evolve m^ethod and system. Confusion can not evolve order and 
■ law. Aimless fortuity can not evolve plan. Chaos can not evolve 
law, plan, purpose, order, and system. So declares common sense. 
It is an insult to common sense to suggest such a thought ; and 
yet this is the fundamental idea of atheistic evolution. To make 
evolution and development even thinkable, we must have in the 
absolutely primordial constitution of matter and force, in the 
course of evolution and in the present order of things, realized 
those most exalted ideas of reason, co-ordination, order, method, 
system, law and plan. It is an insult to reason to suggest such 
development, if such is not the case. It is an insult to reason to 
suggest such realization of these ideas unless reason be back of 
such primordial constitution to realive them. Then to get rid of 
intelligence as the ground of evolution, the atheist has to strip 
matter and force in their constitution of every thing that renders 
evolution thinkable. And to have evolution he has to place in 
the absolute primordial constitution of matter and force, charac- 
teristics that have their only thinkable ground in mind. He in- 
sults reason if he assumes that these characteristics have any other 
ground than reason. 

There are only three conceivable methods of operation of mat- 
ter and force and their properties. Chance or fortuity. Pate or 
blind necessity. Or under control of mind. The atheist talks 
of order, system, method and law, order of evolution, law of de- 
velopment, or of nature, method of nature. He is grossly incon- 
sistent, and has no right to use one of these terms. To get rid of 
intelligence, he empties the course of matter and force of all idea 
of purpose, end or plan, all ideas of intelligence in control of it, 
all unitizing ideas of reason, all connecting links of thought are 
rejected as being realized in nature. We have the aimless for- 
tuity of the grapeshot, in the operation of the essential properties 



APPENDIX, 387 

of matter and force, and the peculiar properties of elementary sub- 
stances, and chemical action, the actions of organs, and all na- 
ture. To have evolution and progress or development, there 
must be a change, hence these factors can not be controlled by- 
fate, or they would always produce the same necessitated result. 
Evolution under fate, or blind undeviating necessity, is an ab- 
surdity. Then to get evolution, we must discard this idea, and 
have change. If there is no control of reason, the blind factors 
produce only chance, fortuity, aimless fortuity. It is absurd to 
talk of evolution and development and progress by the aimless 
ongoings of fortuity of blind matter and force. Not only so, but 
what right has the evolutionist to use the terms law, order, 
method, system in such a grapeshot series ? How can there be 
creation by law; evolution by law, or in accordance with law of 
nature, order of nature, in such a grapeshot series of happen- 
stances f All talk of law, order, system, method or of evolution or 
development or progress is an insult to common sense. The evo- 
lutionist empties the course of matter and force of all action or 
idea of intelligence, and then deliberately steals from the opera- 
tions of intelligence every term he uses in his system. The terms 
he uses and applies to his evolution are only possible in the action 
of mind. If there be not mind and reason back of matter and 
force, and controlling these ongoings, if their ongoings be grape- 
shot fortuities, all talkoflavv, order, law of evolution, law ofna- 
tute, order of nature, creation by law, evolution by law, are ab- 
surd. To render evolution thinkable there must be co-ordina- 
tion, arrangement, method, system, order, plan and law. All 
talk of evolution without these ideas is folly. All talk of them 
with the blind, aimless fortuitous ongoings of mere matter and 
force, asserted by the evolutionist, is folly. Alternativity, choice 
and freedom under law, is all that can be allowed and have evolu- 
tion. Grapeshot fortuity is preposterous as a basis for evolution. 
Co-ordination, arrangement, order, law, plan are absurdities, ex- 
cept as they are based in reason, and are the results and acts of 
reason. The evolutionist, then, has no right to the use of these 
words, and they have no place or connection in his system. 

It is time that this was understood. It is a trick of scientists 
to speak of all idea of creation and miracle, providence and all 
religious ideas, as though they were in violation of all law, and a set- 
ting to one side of law, or at least capricious and lawless. The issue 
between evolution and creation, government and providence, by a 
Creator, is not an issue between law and violation of law, or law and 
lack of law^ ; but a question as to what kind of law. If atheistic evo- 
lution be true, if matter and force be the origin of all things, there 
can be law only In the lower sense of a uniform course of acting, 
and this must be undeviating fate or necessity, and if so no evolu- 
tion. If change be possible as there must be to give evolution, there 
can be nothing but aimless fortuity, if there be but matter and 
force, and no law at all, not even in the lowest sense of an uni- 
form mode of acting. It is only when all things have their origin 
in and are governed by intelligence, that there can be law, even 
in the lowest sense, and it is only in such cases that law is possi- 



388 THE TROBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

ble in its true sense, a determination of the end to be reached, 
and the methods of reaching it. Creation and government by 
Creator and providence are in accordance with law, the highest 
and truest law, law of perfect reason. God creates and governs 
and exercises providential care over his works, in accordance 
with law, the highest law, a law of infinite perfect reason. Then 
it is the atheist who violates all law in his system, and has no law, 
but aimless chance, and no basis for law, and no possible place for 
law, not even the law of capricious intelligence. We return to 
him the charge of having a system without law, if true to his 
system. If he uses the terms law, order, method system or plan, 
!ie purloins them from the very system that he assails as destitute 
of law. The evolutionist makes what he calls law depend on 
generalization of phenomena. If his system of aimless fortuity 
be true there can be no generalization and no law, as an expres- 
sion of such generalization. Generalization results from the 
operation of law. Evolutionists makes the principle depend on 
the process, when process results from operation of principle. 
Law reveals the principle that determines and regulates the pro- 
cess. Law is found by generalized observation and not created 
by it. Evolutionist reverses the true process. 

The Source of all Existences and Phenomena Unknoivahle. 

The former position of the atheist, that matter and force are 
self-existent and the source of all being, has been so thoroughly 
exploded that a new evasion is now resorted to by these advanced 
thinkers. It is admitted that matter and force are themselves 
phenomena, and not the source of being. As they are phenomena 
there must be a noumenon, or that which is their source. Spencer 
says to talk of appearances without a something, a reality that 
appears, is absurd. But determined not to admit the existence of 
a God, or an intelligent source of all being, it is asserted that the 
source of all thiugs is unknown and unknowable. The query 
arises, If it is unknown and unknowable, how do these thinkers 
know anthing of it? How do they know that back of phenomena 
there is such a power? How do they have any conception of it? 
How do they know enough about it to know that it is unknowable? 
How do they have sufficient conception of it, if it is unknoAvn and 
unknowable, to have the idea or conception that it is unknowable 
or even exists? In the affirmation it is assumed that the affirmant 
knows that this power exists, and knows that it is unknown, and 
knows that it can not be known, and knows a great deal about it, 
ibr he knows enough to give many things connected with it that 
make it unknowable. This evasion is expressed in various ways : 

I. We have not sufficient data connected with this power to know 
any thing about it. Above all, and that is the real object of the 
evasion, we have not sufficient data to affirm that it is intelligence. 

II. We can have no knowledge, not even au apprehension, of the 
infinite. As this unknown power is infinite we can have abso- 
lutely no knowledge, not even an appreliension of it. HI. The 
term God is but a term giving a name to something of which we 



APPENDIX. 389 

know nothing, but wish to talk about. It is a phrase, a phrase used for 
convenience, but expressing no idea or knowledge of ours, but 
rather a symbol representing the unknowable, like the letter X, 
in an indeterminate equation. It represents something of which 
we have no knowledge, and have no means of knowledge. If a 
personification, it is but a term personifying our ignorance. IV. 
Or if we do make a person of this power, we are personifying it 
in ignorance and weakness, just as the child personifies and must 
personify every thing that affects him, or causes the phenomena he 
observes. V. Or in making a person of this power we merely pro- 
ject ourselves into nature and worship ourselves. VI. Or we 
make this power in our own likeness. We make God in our own 
image. Is it the case that we have not sufficient data to determine 
the nature, characteristics and qualities of this power? Can not 
we tell from the phenomena produced by this power, its nature, 
character, and qualities? Inductive philosophy is at an end if we 
can not, for it is based on that principle. Can not we tell from 
what proceeds from this source, the nature of the source ? If not, 
all search for knowledge is a chimera, and knowledge a delusion. 
Let us take a familiar illustration. I have before me a book re- 
garded as one of the master-pieces of human genius, the Illiad. I 
trace it back through translation and copy, versions and commen- 
taries, until the time of Pisistratus. I learn that, for at least four 
hundred years before that, it existed in oral tradition. I can not 
learn its exact epoch. I can not learn who was its author. We do 
not know whether it had one author or several. We do not know 
whether Homer was the author or not, or even whether such a 
person as Homer ever lived. We do not know when the author 
lived, or where he lived. Certainly, if ever there was a case of the 
unknown and the unknowable we have it in this case. 

Suppose I say Homer is but a phrase or term giving a name to 
the unknown author. No one would seriously demur. But sup- 
pose I affirm that Homer is but a term for an unknown power, a 
letter X, a symbol for an indeterminate power. We do not know 
that the unknown power producing the poem was an intelli- 
gence. We have not suflicient data to prove that it was an in- 
telligence. We can know nothing of the power producing the 
Iliad, except that it existed, and is unknown and unknowable. 
All would denounce such talk as nonsense. They would say : 
We know that it is, and must have been the creation of mind. 
We knoAV from the character and nature of the work, the char- 
acteristics of the author. We know the attributes of his mind. 
He was the greatest poetic genius that ever lived. He is un- 
rivaled in genius, power, sublimity and poetic grandeur. We 
can determine the nature of the cause, and the character of the 
cause, from the effect, his work. So in the case before us, we can 
determine the nature of the source or power from the phenomena 
produced by the power, from what proceeds from the source, and 
we can determine the attributes and character of the power, 
from the character of the effects or products of the power. If 
we can not, then all inductive philosophy, all knowledge, and 
search for knowledge, is a delusion. In the present constitution 



390 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

of things, that have been produced by this power — in the course 
of evolution culminating in the present order of things — in each 
step and the entire course emanating from 'this power, in the pri- 
mordial constitution of things, in th-e absolute beginning of phe- 
nomena proceeding from this power, are realized some of the 
most exalted and abstract ideas of reason, order, co-ordination, 
arrangement, adjustment, adaptation, system, method, law, plan, 
prevision, provision, alternativity, choice, the most abstract and 
profound ideas of mathematics, in arithmetical proportion and 
number, and geometrical proportion and form, of beauty, utility 
and harmony. Then the present order of things, the course of 
evolution, the absolute beginning or primordial constitution of 
things, had their origin in reason that realized these ideas. The 
phenomena produced by this power are rational phenomena, the 
phenomena of reason, and the power producing the phenomena 
is reason. We know this just as certainly as we know that the 
Iliad was produced by intelligence. Then we can determine this 
symbol. We can learn the value of this X. The equation is not 
indeterminate. On one side we have the highest products of 
reason. On the other, we have reason as certainly as it is true 
that if A = B and B === C, then A = C. The term God is not 
a personification of our ignorance, but the appellation of a power 
that Ave know to be personality, if we can know any thing at all. 
It is not a convenient term giving an appellation to something 
we must speak of, but can know nothing, except that it exists; 
but it is a name for a being whose existence and character we 
know, if we know any thing, and given on account of such knowl- 
edge, expressing not ignorance but knowledge. 

Nor is it true that our knowledge vanishes and becomes worth- 
less or imaginary when we expand the idea to infinity. We can 
not comprehend the infinite, but we can apprehend it. We can 
not comprehend its quantity or degree, but we can apprehend its 
existence, and know its qualities. The objector does when he 
affirms we can not, for he apprehends its existence, and one 
quality, that it is unknowable, another it is unknown. And 
several qualities in his reasons why it is unknowable and un- 
known. One quality at least in each affirmation. The objector 
admits knowledge of the infinite in space and duration, and in 
being and causation in this power, the source of all things. He 
rises from the finite through the relatively infinite to the abso- 
lute in space, duration and being and causation in this power, 
that he declares is the source of all being. We^can rise through 
finite displays of intelligence, through relatively infinite displays 
of intelligence, to absolute displays of intelligence in the same 
way, and to absolute intelligence. The objector denias it, not 
because there is any greater difficulty or any defect in the pro- 
cess, but because he is determined to reject Infinite Intelligence. 
In this evasion there is a juggling substitution of things entirely 
different, a juggling confusion of radically different ideas. A 
comprehension of quantity or degree, is substituted for, or con- 
fused with, an apprehension of quality or character. I stand 
before the Pacific Ocean. I can not comprehend its magnitude. 



APPENDIX. 391 

either in numerical expression, or in sense effort to see it, or feel 
it all. But I should regard it as nonsense for one to declare, 
therefore I could not know and understand the properties of the 
water that was under my sight and power to investigate, and 
that I could not know that the infinite ocean possessed in in- 
finite degree, what this portion possessed in finite degree. Such 
an assertion confounds comprehension of quantity or degree, with 
knowledge of quality or character. From what proceeds from 
a source we can determine the nature and character of the 
source, even if infinite. We know it is infinite in the same 
quality. If the phenomena proceeding from this power possess 
the characteristics of but one attribute, we know it has this at- 
tribute at least. We know it has all the attributes displayed by 
what proceeds from it, if it be true that we can determine the 
cause by the efiect. If we can not, we may as well stop reason- 
ing, the denial of reason and reasoning practiced by the atheists, 
with the rest. 

We no more personify the power back of nature, when we 
make it an intelligence, as does the child j^ersonify the stone that 
hurts him, than the child when he reaches manhood personifies in 
a rhetorical sense, when he attributes his pain to the one who 
strikes him, and blames him for it, and regards him as an intel- 
ligence, and as responsible for it. He recognizes the intelligence 
and personality and responsibility that exist, and does not create 
them, in his mind. So we recognize the reason and personality 
that displays itself in nature. We do not create the personality 
and reason, by our imagination, or fancy personality when none 
exists. One is as clear a recognition of undoubted personality as 
the other. We no more project ourselves into the forces of na- 
ture, and worship our own image projected into nature, than the 
child projects himself into his father's conduct, and reveres and 
loves his own image projected into the conduct that he observes. 
and that causes his love. As the child observes real acts of 
another personality, and learns their character, and loves and es- 
teems the personality that produced the conduct, on account of 
its character, so we observe, in nature, the acts of personality. 
We learn the character and nature of that person from the char- 
acter of his acts. We worship that person on account of his 
character, as we learn it from his acts. We no more make God in 
our own likeness than the reader makes the author in his image, 
or the pupil the teacher, or the child his parent. The reader rec- 
ognizes intelligence, and common qualities in the author, with 
his own, that really exist. So does the pupil in the teacher, tlie 
child in his parent. And so we recognize intelligence, and com- 
mon attributes of intelligence in ourselves and our Creator. We 
do not fancy the acts of intelligence we see in nature, nor create 
by imagination or fancy the intelligence, that we say caused 
them. We see the acts of intelligence, because they are in na- 
ture the same as our own acts. They are acts that we know intel- 
ligence alone could have produced. We then know that intelli- 
gence produced these acts of intelligence. This course of reason- 
ing of the atheist, if carried out, would deny all knowledge of 



392 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

any personality but our own, and all personality but our own. 
There is this much truth in it: We are apt to judge others by 
ourselves. Self-knowledge colors our knowledge of others. It is 
so in the case of the pupil, the child and the reader. They in- 
terpret, to some extent, the parent, the teacher and author, by 
themselves. Their mental bias affects the character of the effect 
the parent or teacher has on them, and their estimate of the 
character and acts of parent and teacher. But this does not 
prove that they can have no knowledge of parent or teacher, or 
of their character. Nor that they only see their own personality 
entirely in the supposed parent and teacher, and that the parent 
and teacher are unknown and unknowable. Nor that parent and 
teacher can not reveal themselves and ideas to the child, and cor- 
rect its mistakes, and give a correct knowledge. It only demon- 
strates the necessity of such revelation and instruction, and of 
careful study by the child. The objection only proves the neces- 
sity of revelation, and not that we can have no knowledge of 
God. 

The Application of the Reductio ad Absuedum to the 
Teleological Argument. 

The main reliance of the atheist now, in his attempts to meet 
the teleological argument, is Avhat is called the Reductio ad 
Absurdum refutation. This is an attempt to extend the argu- 
ment to the Creator it demonstrates, and thus break it down by 
showing that, if logically carried out, it leads to an absurdity. 
The ablest presentation of this famous reply to the design argu- 
ment, is the tract of B. F. Underwood, the eminent atheistic 
lecturer and debater, on '■'■The Design Argument." By request 
the author here gives, by itself, his refutation of this attempt of 
Mr. Underwood. In applying the design argurnent to the Crea- 
tor, he assumes that the cases are analogous, when they are not. 
There is analogy in certain respects, between man's w^ork pro- 
duced by intelligence and the processes of nature. This analogy 
suggests the argument. But there is not analogy between either 
man's works and tlie constitution of nature, on the one hand, and 
the being and attributes of the Infinite Creator, on the other. In 
one case we have co-ordination, arrangement, order, system and 
plan of parts, organs and material instrumental causes. In the 
other, infinite, eternal, self-existent harmony of attributes of in- 
finite, eternal, self-existent mind. In the one case we have adap- 
tation of parts and organs, that are material, to certain ends or 
work. In the other, infinite, eternal and self existent potency or 
sufficiency of eternal, self-existent and infinite niind to the crea- 
tion of what exists. Then we reject, in reasoning concerning the 
Divine Mind, the terms co-ordination, order, arrangement, adap- 
tation, on which the extension of the design argument to the 
Creator is based, as utterly inapplicable, and cut short the exten- 
sion of the argument. It can not be extended, because there is 
not an element of similarity or a parallel in the cases, and all 



APPENDIX. ' 393 

attempt to do so is based ou gross fallacies and is a gross ab- 
surdity. 

We reject, also, in speaking of creation by absolute reason, the 
terms contrivance and contrive and work, when used in the sense 
that we use them in applying them to man's work. Such appli- 
cation makes the Creator an artificer, a tinker, that has to con- 
trive and plan and study out the ends to be reached, and how to 
reach them. The terms contrivance and plan are too mechanical 
in their ordinary meaning. Absolute reason absolutely knows 
the perfect end, and the perfect means to be employed, and ab- 
solutely and perfectly uses them, and accomplishes that end, per- 
fectly present to infinite reason. There is no study, or contriv- 
ing, or planning, no working or toiling, such as finite reason 
is compelled to use. Parley's argument is liable to the objec- 
tion, that it is too mechanical. It speaks of the Creator as a 
mere artificer, a tinker, or at best an admirable inventor and 
machinist. The infidel has availed himself of this defect and 
caricatured it, in his assaults on the design argument, especially 
when he charges it with anthropomorphizing God. 

But the attempt to extend the design argument to the Abso- 
lute Intelligent Cause, is a violation of the highest law of reason 
and all reasoning. From finite space we rise through relatively 
infinite space to absolutely infinite space. Here we stop. Rea- 
son does not ask what bounds absolute space, knowing that be- 
cause .it is absolute, it can have no boundary or limitation. In 
like manner, we rise from finite duration, through relatively in- 
finite duration, to absolute duration, or eternity; and reason 
stops, knowing that absolute duration, being absolute, has no 
limitation, and no beginning or end. In like manner, from finite 
displays of causation reason, rises through lelatively infinite dis- 
plays of causation, to absolute causation. From finite displays 
of intelligent causation, reason rises through relatively infinite 
displays of intelligent causation to absolute intelligent cause. 
Reason does not ask what caused absolute intelligent cause, any 
more than it asks what bounds absolute space, or what preceded 
or succeeds absolute duration, knowing that as absolute space can 
have no limit because absolute, and absolute duration neither be- 
ginning nor end, because absolute, so absolute intelligent cause can 
have no limitation in causation or being, and can have no cause, 
because absolute. The attempted extension of the argument is 
as absurd as it would be to continue to apply the limitation and 
boundaries of finite space or duration to absolute space or dura- 
tion. As one is absurd and a violation of all reason, so is the 
other. 

There is but one way of evading this: that is, to deny that we 
can rise to an apprehension or knowledge of the absolute. But 
the fact that the objector himself does, and admits he does in 
space and duration, and admits its validity, and that reason does 
in intelligent cause, or we would not have the term intelligent 
absolute cause, is sufficient proof that reason can, and does, and 
that the act is valid ; as valid in intelligent causation as it is in 
space or time. Again, Spencer and Underwood both refute their 



394 THE PROBLEM OF PrtOBfiEMS. 

own argumcDt in attempting to extend the design argument to 
the Creator, and confess we can apprehend the infinite. Both 
place back of all phenomena an unknown power. Both affirm the 
reality of this power. As they make it the source of all phenom- 
ena, they confess its self-existence, independence, self-sustenance, 
and eternity, or that it is infinite and absolute. Here is a confes- 
sion that reason can apprehend the infinite, and a claim, by them, 
to apprehend it. It is a confession that when reason reaches the 
absolute it stops and rests satisfied, having found the ground of 
all being, for they do so themselves. But we can turn the tables 
on these philosophers, and reasoning just as they do, we can re- 
duce their reasoning on an unknown power, to an absurdity. 
Using the terms just as they do (illogically, however, we confess), 
we can say that from what proceeds from this unknown power, 
there must be the most admirable adaptation to producing phe- 
nomena, and from the character of the phenomena, there must be 
the most perfect co-ordination and arrangement in this unknown 
power ; and by a parity of reasoning, there must be an unknown 
power to produce this unknown power, and so on, ad infinitum; 
and thus the argument proves to be utterly fallacious, for it nec- 
essarily ends in an utter absurdity. 

They would retort, doubtless, and correctly, that phenomena 
are the results of power, and we pass back until we reach absolute 
power. Power itself being the source of phenomena, is not neces- 
sarily a phenomenon ; and that there must be at least one power 
that is not a phenomenon, or all things are phenomena, and with- 
out any power, which is absurd. Then there must be 5, power, the 
source of all phenomena, and when reason reaches the unknown 
power, the absolute power, it has found that power, which, being 
absolute, can not be a phenomenon, and is the source of all phe- 
nomena, because it is absolute and can have no limitation. So 
we say reason declares that all we see can not be effects, or we 
have effects without cause, which is absurd. Then there must be 
a cause that is not an effect, or is uncaused, and is the basis of all 
causation and being. When reason has reached this it rests satis- 
fied, knowing that absolute cause can have no cause or limitation, 
because absolute. Spencer must abandon his phantom, the un- 
known power, or accept absolute intelligent cause. Underwood 
attempts to destroy the argument by applying the reasoning of 
the design argument to the plan of the universe that must have 
been in the Divine Mind, and claims to prove that the argument 
proves the plan to have been self-existent and eternal, which is 
absurd. Hence, the argument is not valid. ''J'here is fallacy 
again in confounding things not parallel. There is harmony and 
consistency and logical unity in the plan, but not arrangement of 
parts. Again, we can admit the eternity of the plan in the 
Divine Mind, but not its self-existence, for it is an act of mind, 
a creation of mind, and can not be self-existent. The attempted 
refutation is a gross absurdity. We are asked, sometimes, why 
not stop with an infinite universe, if the mind stops with the in- 
finite? Because the realization of the highest and most abstract 
ideas of reason, in the universe and in its absolutely primordial 



APPENDIX. 395 

constitution, prove it is constructed by reason, tbat realized these 
ideas, and throws the reason back on absolute reason, and here 
reason rests, having found absolute cause. Reason can never stop 
in effect, even infinite effect, for it knows every effect must have 
a cause, an infinite effect, an infinite cause. But when it reaches 
absolute cau.se it rests, because it has found adequate ground for all 
being, and it reasons that absolute cause can not be limited or have 
a cause. What we call infinite effect is not absolute or unlim- 
ited in all attributes, for it is limited in the origin of its exist- 
ence. It is an effect and must have a cause. Such is not the case 
with absolute cause. Hence, reason stops with absolute cause, 
and not until it has reached it. Spencer does not stop with in- 
finite phenomena. He passes back to absolute power, the un- 
known power. There he stops. The only issue can be: Is this 
power reason or intelligence? 

The design argument is strictly and severely inductive. The 
atheist should either attempt to show that its premises are incor- 
rect, or that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. 
The attempted reductio ad ahsurdum is a shallow subterfuge, a 
weak attempt at evasion, a feeble attempt to obscure the reason- 
ing by sophistry. It assumes that the argument is what it is not. 
It attempts to inject into it ideas and terms, or to change the real 
meaning of its terms, and thus break it down. Let the atheist 
answer these questions. I. Do not the co-ordination, arrange- 
ment, adjustment, adaptation, order, method, system, law, plan, 
prevision and provision, design, purpose, alternativity and choice, 
that are self-evidently seen in man's operations, using the 
forces and materials of nature, have their only conceivable origin 
in his intelligence ? Must not intelligence be their cause, their 
only conceivable cause ? He dare not deny that there are these 
characteristics in man's operations using the materials and forces 
of nature. Nor that man's intelligence is their cause, and that 
intelligence must be their cause, and is their only conceivable 
cause. II. Are there not co-ordination, arrangement, adjust- 
ment, adaptation, order, method, system, law, plan, design, pre- 
vision, provision, purpose, alternativity and choice, in the crea- 
tion of the matter and force of nature, in the absolute prim.ordial 
constitution of nature, in the course of evolution of nature, in the 
present constitution of nature, in all the existences and phe- 
nomena of nature, and in the production and control of all exist- 
ences and phenomena of nature? If he denies this he contra- 
dicts the voice of all human reason, which has recognized these 
characteristics in all of these cases, from the first man who ob- 
served nature, until the present. He contradicts reason and 
common sense, which intuitively recognizes these characteristics 
in these instances. He contradicts himself, for he uses these 
terms in all of these cases in describing nature. He can not de- 
scribe nature without using them. His system of evolution rec- 
ognizes them in all these cases in nature. It is impossible 
unless they exist in nature. He renders all study of nature, all 
knowledge of nature, and all science an impossibility and a de- 
lusion, in. Do not the co-ordination, arrangement, adjustment, 



396 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

adaptation, order, method, system, law, plan, design, purpose, 
prevision, provision, alternativity and choice there is in the 
creation of the matter and force of nature, the absolute primor- 
dial constitution of nature, the course of evolution of -nature, the 
present order of nature, in every existence and phenomena of 
nature, and in the production and control of every existence and 
phenomena of nature, have their only conceivable origin in rea- 
son ? Must not reason have been their cause ? Is not reason 
their only conceivable cause ? It is an insult to reason to deny 
it. Reason declares that these ideas, and the ideas of mathemat- 
ics, beauty, order, harmony, law and utility the most exalted 
and abstract ideas of reason that are realized in the creation of 
matter and force, and in the absolute primordial constitution of 
nature, in the course of evolution in the present order of nature, 
in every existence and phenomena of nature, and in the produc- 
tion and control of every existence and phenomena of nature, 
must have been realized in each case by reason, which created, 
constituted and controls nature by them, and realized them in 
nature in each case. From this there is no escape except to de- 
throne reason. The fog of the attempted reductio ad absurdum 
will not obscure it, any more than a putf of the objector's breath 
will blot the sun out of the noonday heavens. Thrusting one's 
head into that fog, an unknown power, will no more save the ob- 
jector than the ostrich thrusting his head into the sand saves 
him from the pursuer. 

Is Religion a Perversion of Man^s Nature f 

The position of the atheist now is, that religion is a perversion 
of man's nature, at least of one element in his nature. To estab- 
lish this, he should tell us the element perverted. He can not do 
this, and give a name to it that expresses its nature, and define 
it correctly, without conceding religion. The element is venera- 
tion, spirituality and conscientiousness. The proper and absolute 
object of veneration, and without which it is not satisfied, is God. 
The proper object of spirituality is spirit existence, and spiritual 
life. The absolute standard to which conscience appeals is its 
"ougJit :" "I ought to do this. I owe the doing of this," to what ? 
To an Absolute Lawgiver, Ruler, Judge and Executive — God. 
Then to establish his position that religion is a perversion of an 
element in man's nature, the atheist must tell us what element 
is perverted, establish clearly its nature, and in this way its prop- 
er use, and then show that religion is a perversion, by showing 
that it is not the proper use of this element. If religion is an 
abuse, it is an evil only, and that continually, and only evil can 
come out of it. The position that man has progressed by means 
of what is evil, and out of it by means of it, is an absurdity, and 
a contradiction of our moral intuitions and experience. If re- 
ligion is evil, then progress has been possible only as man aban- 
doned it, rejected evil, and chose ti'uth, and practiced the good. 
The assertion of some atheists that progress has not been in con- 
sequence of religion, or by means of it, but in spite of it, is the 



APPENDIX. 397 

only true ground. The assertions of others that Christianity has 
done great good (in its day) is an absurdity, and only an attempt 
to cajole its friends, and lull them to sleep until these persons 
can destroy it. Another query arises here : Since men have 
always had religions, and thus perverted their nature, in what 
can we trust reason and human nature ? If it has always made 
this greatest of all mistakes in this most important of all things, 
and perverted itself in the most important act it ever did, in what 
can we trust it? Is knowledge possible ? Is not search for knowl- 
edge a delusion, and knowledge itself a chimera? Then if human 
nature be so unreliable, how did these philosophers find it out ? 
By means of this delusive nature ? May not their attack on re- 
ligion be a perversion of nature, and what they present in its 
stead a perversion of nature? Certainly these philosophers must 
have a different nature from human nature, that is so unre- 
liable. 

Another inconsistency is met here. Every other element of our 
nature is to be elevated, expanded, and cultivated according to 
the atheist, but this religious element. It is to be eliminated. 
We are not to have perfect religion, but atheism, no religion. 
Why? Because in religion there is government, restraint, respon- 
sibility, law, punishment. " The simpleton hath said in his heart 
(his wishes, his desires; not his head, his reason, his intellect) 
there is no God! " An attempt is made to show that veneration 
for the true and good and beautiful in art and nature is the only 
legitimate use of the religious element. How do we know what is 
true, beautiful, and good, without an absolute standard in Abso- 
lute Reason, or God ? Then all other elements have an absolute 
resting place, and end in the absolute. Why not this element 
have an absolute object of veneration, the Absolute, True, Beau- 
tiful and Good in Absolute Reason ? But we deny that admiration 
for the true and beautiful and good in nature and art, are a full 
exercise of the element that is used in religion. As well might 
one claim that the tawdry daubing of the savage is a full exercise 
of the law of beauty. We deny that religion is a perversion of 
this love for the true, beautiful, and good, or that it hinders such 
exercise of this element. On the contrary, religion is the only 
complete exercise of this element, and religion is necessary to its 
proper exercise, in the lower field of the atheist. The Christian 
can admire the beautiful in nature and art as much as the atheist, 
and in an infinitely higher degre-e, for they are the work of Infinite 
Wisdom. He can love the truth in nature as much as the atheist, 
and in an infinitely higher sense, for it is the voice of Infinite 
Wisdom and Truth. He can reverence the good in nature as 
much as the atheist, and in an infinitely higher sense, for it is 
the image of Infinite Goodness. The Christian has higher themes 
and conceptions of the true and beautiful and good than the athe- 
ist. He has absolute themes and standard which this element 
demands, and which alone will satisfy it. They have absolute 
authority and sanction, and an absolute standard which satisfies 
conscience and man's entire relii2:ious nature. 



398 THE mOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

But what does the atheist include in human reason ? Does he 
iuclude man's mental, moral, and religious nature? In what sense 
is man's reason his guide? In the sense that it includes man's 
mental, moral, and religious nature, and God and revelation, 
that they demand and accept ? All will accept it. But if this is 
rejected, it is but a partial recognition of human reason. Eeason, 
when it has all the data it demands, God, religion and revelation, 
is man's guide. Enlightened human reason. What does that 
mean? Does not reason require the exalted ideas of God, religion, 
and revelation to enlighten it? Has reason ever been satisfied 
with its own decisions and guidance? Can it ever be made so? 
Have not reason and conscience ever looked to a higher element, to 
religion ? Has reason and conscience ever been satisfied until they 
had this? Have not they ever rested satisfied in it? Will reason, 
no matter how enlightened by mere science, ever be satisfied with 
that alone, without religion, and an absolute standard in God? 
Can reason give man more than good advice? Can it give sanc- 
tion and authority to its teachings? Can reason decide what is 
right and what is wrong ? Can it decide what makes a thing right 
and the opposite wrong? If it could, can it give such authority 
and sanction to its decisions as to impel men to do what is right, 
and restrain them from doing what is wrong ? Ought not we to 
carefully weigh these questions before we cast to one side 'religion, 
for what is called enlightened reason f 

Can Modern Science, Physical Science, and Evolution give us 3Ioral- 
ity, and a system of Morals f 

Can morality be made a subject of investigation by physical 
science ? Has it the data or methods to attempt or conduct such 
an investigation ? To ask the question is to answer it. What 
would such persons investigate to learn and determine morality ? 
How would they conduct the investigation? Investigate matter 
and physical force ? Use crucible, retort, microscope, scalpel, tape- 
line, and balance? No; they would have to investigate man's 
moral and religious nature. They would have to accept and use 
the catholic ideas of his religious and moral nature. \v itliout 
them they would not think of such investigation ; for in this ele- 
ment of man's nature alone is found the subject of investigation, 
and these catholic ideas alone furnish ideas to be used in the in- 
vestigation, and the means and standard of investigation. Then 
has science, physical science, any thing to do with morals? If 
atheistic evolution be true, can there be any morality, or moral 
idea, or character, in any thing? Mere matter and force have no 
moral nature, character, or idea in them. If there ever was a 
time when they alone existed, there was no moral nature or char- 
acter, and such things could not have come into being, nor any 
thing possessing them, if the scientist's maxim, " Out of nothing, 
nothing comes," be true. Let us lay to one side all ideas of mo- 
rality, and trace this course of materialistic evolution. Let us take 
physical science as our standard. First, we have to lay to one side 
all freedom, all volition, all choice. Physical science, with its 



APPENDIX. 399 

matter and physical force, knows only necessity. Out of such a 
basis no freedom or volition could be evolved. Next, we lay to 
one side all idea of truth and falsehood, good and evil, vice and 
virtue. There can be no such distinctions. We have no founda- 
tion for such distinction. Such distinction could not be evolved 
out of mere matter and force. They would never hint or suggest it. 
All things are alike the product of evolution by matter and force, 
and there is no distinction or moral quality in them. One thing has 
no greater right to exist than another. We can not elevate one 
act or thing above another. We have no standard above what 
matter and force produce. These distinctions we make are — well, 
we were going to say false, but we can not, for they exist, and are 
the products of matter and force. The whole nature of man is a 
contradiction, a clash, a warfare of things alike evolved by neces- 
sity. If we say one of these antagonists ought to exist, we have a 
standard above physical science; and discard physical science. 

The supreme of physical science is force. All is evolved by 
force. The fittest survives,. and that is the strongest. There is no 
fittest, for that comes from something above force. Force evolves 
all things, and one is as fit as the other. The strongest survives. 
Force knows no high or low, no fit or unfit, no good or evil. It 
only knows the strongest or weakest. Then an unrelenting strug- 
gle for life is the order of nature. Massacre is normal and right. 
A selfish struggle for life, in which the strongest survives, is the 
supreme order of nature, and the supreme law. Self-preservation 
by any and all means in our grasp, (which is not the law of na- 
ture, as is asserted, but the law of brute nature,) is indeed the 
supreme law of nature. A selfish struggle with all else, a selfish 
struggle in which all else is ruthlessly extirpated, and in which 
the strongest survives, is the supreme standard. This is as high 
as evolution, in which there is a struggle for life and the strongest 
survives, can go, for a stream can not rise above its fountain. 
Eight and wrong, vice and virtue, self-denial and self-sacrifice 
are aggravating cheats and impudence. They torture us w'ith 
ideas and dreams that are false and can not be realized, for the 
strongest survives. Then they torture us for our failure to realize 
them. Our nature is a most cruel mockery and delusion, espe- 
cially what we madly regard as its highest element and controlling 
element. Then there are other beauties still to unfold. Selfish 
struggle in which the strongest survives is the supreme law. Then 
self-gratification is the supreme end and law for us, for that is but 
carrying out the supreme law, a selfish struggle in which the strong- 
est prevails or survives. 

Then each one struggles with all the rest, and the strongest 
prevails — might makes right. Each selfishly takes all he can get, 
and keeps all he gets. Truly, in this system of materialistic 
evolution, " The chief end of man is to keep all he gets, and get 
all he can." Another beauty : There is only blind, irrational 
matter, and blind, physical force in the universe, except in man, 
and a lower order of intelligence in animals. As the stream can 
not rise above its foiuitain, there is no difference in man's acts, 
for all are the ongoings of force, and alike necessary, "and alike 



400 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

the product of force. The highest achievement of human reason 
of man is, to learn the ongoings of nature in time-succession, and 
learn to keep step with the machine. The struggle is for life and 
self, and self-gratification. Man's supreme object is to get all 
the gratification that he can, without being crushed by the 
machine. All talk about laws of nature is nonsense. There is 
only time-succession. All talk about obeying laws of nature, 
or nature executing its law, is nonsense. You keep step with 
the machine. You do not disobey law. You were not wise 
enough to keep step, and the blind machine crushed you. It 
is not executing a law. You know that this machine is irra- 
tional. You know that you are smart enoug.i to cheat this irra- 
tional machine, nature, out of vast amounts of selfish gratifica- 
tion, and avoid being crushed, provided you are stronger than 
your fellow-men that come in collision with you. Indeed, that 
is the supreme law, for in this struggle the strongest prevails. 
Do this, lor there is no Intelligent Ruler, Lawgiver, Judge and 
Executive. Pitch in, and the blind monster, nature, with your 
help, crush out the hindmost. 

Then if there be a law of evolution, and all things be con- 
trolled by necessity, as must be the case ; if struggle for life, with 
survival of strongest, be the supreme law that controlled it, and 
controls it now — for no stream can rise above its fountain — then 
self-denial for what we call virtue and truth, are mere cheats 
and shams. Indeed, they are a sin, for they are a violation of 
the supreme law. The martyr, the patriot, the philanthropist, 
are not only fools and madmen, but criminals, and these things 
that this delusive humbug, our nature, calls the chiefest of vir- 
tues, are the highest of crimes, for they are violations of this 
supreme law, a struggle in which the strongest prevails. Their 
supposed glory is a cheat. Not only so, but the man who re- 
lieves disease, or one in want, or suffering or distress, is guilty 
of a crime, as much as the one who helps a criminal escape from 
a sheriff. I know this will be indignantly denied, but let the 
one doing it take mere matter and force, and Darwin's laws, and 
the course of atheistic evolution, and show wherein there is one 
particle of injustice to the system of atheistic evolution out of 
mere matter and force. I challenge any one to change it one 
particle, with only such a basis to reason from. Finally, can 
physical science produce, at best, more than material civilization ? 
This is but an increase of power. IIow shall it be used? What 
shall control it ? Material science can not hint an answer to this 
question. Are the most learned, most scientific men, necessarily 
the best? Does mere physical science make them so? Physical 
science can not give us a moral idea. 

Draper^s Conflict of Religion and Science. 

No book has ever been published tliat has displayed so great 
lack either of intelligence to comprehend the question it discusses, 
or of honesty and fairness to state and meet it. It is continually 
presented as a conflict between Christianity and science. We 



APPENDIX. 401 



have 710 correct definition of either. The author assumes that 
a certain hierarchy is Christianity, and that its assaults on 
science have been the attacks of Christianity. A more unfair 
statement never was made. Christianity is a system of dogma, 
or of truth to be believed ; and of worship, or of acts of religious 
aspiration and devotion ; and of discipline, or rules of life, pre- 
scribing how mau shall discharge his duty to God, his fellow- 
man, and himself. Its object is to save man from the love of sin, 
the practice of sin, the guilt of sin, and the punishment of sin. 
It teaches that if men believe with the whole heart its doctrines, 
perform in like manner its acts of worship, and live its rules of 
life, they shall work out and attain to this salvation. This 
doctrine, worship and discipline are contained in the New Testa- 
ment alone. Christianity teaches that the New Testament is the 
only rule of faith and practice of men, and what can not be read 
therein or proved thereby, is not to be required of any one as an 
item of faith or religious duty. Christianity teaches that the 
apostles were inspired to give the New Testament as the only rule 
of faith and practice of men — that the New Testament is a reve- 
lation, and the only revelation of the wall of God now binding 
on men. The New Testament clearly teaches all this itself. It 
teaches that inspiration and revelation ceased with the apostles, 
and that the opinions or acts of no man or set of men or hie- 
rarchy or church are binding on men as is the New Testament, 
nor in any sense except as they are based on it. The New Testa- 
ment recognizes the right of conscience and private judgment in 
using the New Testament. 

The New Testament most pointedly forbids and repudiates the 
idea that the acts or opinions of any man, or set of men, shall be 
regarded as Christianity. It contains pointed and clear teaching 
on this point. Christianity, then, being a revealed system of 
doctrine, worship and rule of life, is to be found only in such 
revelation. This is as plain as sunlight. Then, when charging 
Christianity with any course of conduct, the one making the 
charge must prove either: 1. That Christianity, the New Testa- 
ment its only rule, enjoins and commands such things. 2. Or 
that it approves of them. 3. Or that it tolerates. 4. Or that 
they are the natural and necessary outgrowth and result of the 
teachings of the New Testament. Will Dr. Draper or any of his 
advocates or apologists answer these questions? I. Where in the 
New Testament is this persecution of science, this opposition to 
science commanded? II. Where in the New^ Testament is it 
approved? III. Where in the New Testament is it tolerated or 
mentioned without condemnation? IV. Of what teaching or 
doctrine of the New Testament is this opposition to science the 
natural and necessary outgrowth ? Had Draper honestly asked 
himself these questions, his book would never have been written. 
We will go farther, and affirm that this persecution is utterly 
foreign to the teachings of the New Testament, to their spirit, 
and tendency, and express declarations. Christianity does not 
concern itself with science, in the modern use of the word. It 
forbade its teachers being entangled in the disputes and quarrels 

3-i 



402 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

of science, when engaged in the discharge of their religious and 
churchly duties. It utterly forbids all temporal pains and penal- 
ties being inflicted by the church. Admonition, rebuke, and 
withdrawal of church-fellowship, are its extreme penalties. Its 
unworldly, charitable spirit, its exalted and unusual philanthro- 
py, and freedom of conscience and judgment, forbid all such per- 
secution. 

Some years ago the monarchists of Europe used to point to 
American slavery as the natural result of the principles of our 
Declaration of Independence. They used slavery as a means of 
assault on republicanism, and declared that its iniquities were 
the necessary result of democracy. Not long ago the State lec- 
turer of the Good Templars, in one of our States, spent a week 
in a drunken debauch. TJie brewers' organ charged his conduct 
on the temperance order to which he professed to belong. Amer- 
icans used to be very indignant at the dishonesty or unfairness 
of monarchists in charging on the Declaration of Independence 
and republican principles what was a palpable violation of every 
one of them. The Good Templars were indignant that the con- 
duct of a man, in violation of the obligation of the order, and 
every principle and object of the order, should be charged on the 
order, as the teachings, or necessary result of the teachings, of the 
order. It displayed either an utter lack of intelligence or an 
utter lack of honesty. The two cases given above, are not any 
more palpable and gross than "Draper's Conflict of Religion and 
Science." Had a priest acted in this way in regard to science, 
with what indignation it would have been received by these 
scientists. Is such, worse than pettifogging, as this the fair, 
liberal and dispassionate literature, written on impartial and 
scientific priciples, that this new science is to give us? If so, 
we will soon have a repetition of the " Conflict," only scientists 
will be acting just as the hierarchy it unjustly regards Christian- 
ity acted. 

Biblical Contradictions of Science. 

There are but three portions of the Scriptures that are re- 
garded as contradicting science that are worthy of serious con- 
sideration. These are the account of creation, the account of the 
flood, and Joshua's commanding the sun and moon to stand still. 
We will endeavor to examine these accounts, just as a scientist 
would examine them, if found in the archaic literature of any 
other nation than the Hebrews — just as Midler would examine 
them if found in the literature of the Persians or Indians. AVe 
regard as established by research in ethnology, philology, old re- 
ligious histories and historic traditions and archaeology the follow- 
ing facts. We can trace all dialects back to one parent stem, and 
trace them to their origin in Western Asia. We can trace all 
races of men to one common origin in Western Asia, as we ex- 
amine the origin of their language, traditions and religion, and 
trace their migrations, and their ethnological origin. We can 
trace certain universal traditions to their origin in Western 
Asia. We can trace old religions to one origin in Western Asia. 



APPENDIX. 403 

Mankind began in Western Asia, with one race or parent stock, 
with one language, one religion, a simple monotheism, and tradi- 
tion says it was a revelation, and one set of historic traditions, 
and a common civilization, with society, law, government and 
knowledge of the nseful arts. The oldest records we have of men 
are of men in Western Asia. They place man before us compara- 
tively civilized. Rawlinson declares that there was in the val- 
ley of the Euphrates, or around the Persian Gulf, a Hamitic 
race, the Accad, that is the oldest of which we have historic 
trace. Baldwin calls it the Cushite, and places it in Arabia near 
the Persian Gulf. Bunsen calls it the Kamitic, and places it in 
Egypt. But Baldwin and Eawlinson prove that the Egyptians 
came from Asia. 

All these agree that this parent race had language, from which 
was derived the Hamitic, Egyptian, Semitic and Touranian fami- 
lies of languages. That they had civilization and learning, from 
which came Egyptian, Persian and Indian civilization and learn- 
ing. Also Phoenician and Canaanitish. This language was re- 
tained as the language, sacred language, of the 'Chaldean priestr^, 
or priesthood of Assyria and Babylonia. So were its traditions 
and religious ideas. They were the esoteric doctrines of the 
priests of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Arabia and Western Asia, 
Persia and India. There are certain historic traditions that are 
common to humanity all over the globe. They are creation, 
primeval innocence and purity, angelic intercourse, great longevity, 
a first transgression or a corruption, loss of angelic intercourse, in- 
nocence and longevity, a flood and preservation of men and ani- 
mals by a ship. These traditions had their origin in Western Asia, 
in the cradle of the race, and in this Accadian history and learn- 
ing. There are two accounts that have come down to us, both 
having their origin in Western Asia, and in the region in which this 
Accadian civilization flourished. One is the Chaldean tradition, 
published by George Smith, in his last work ; and the other is the 
account in the Scriptures. These agree in a remarkable manner, 
and doubtless had a common origin. They are free from the puer- 
ilities and absurdities of other accounts, and have that peculiar 
style that characterizes veritable history. We need examine only 
the scriptural version found in the book of Genesis. This book is 
attributed to Moses, a Hebrew legislator, statesman, warrior, 
prophet and leader, who lived about fifteen hundred years before 
Christ. The records of Egypt and Israel, and the voice of antiq- 
uity, establish : I. There was such a man as Moses. II. His 
people were in bondage in Egypt. III. He lead them over into 
Asia and into freedom. IV. He gave them their national religion, 
laws and government. 

It is established with ten-fold the evidence we have for Hesiod 
or Herodottts, and a htindred-fold the evidence we have for Con- 
fucius, Guatema or Zoroaster, that he wrote the Pentateuch, ex- 
cept small additions, that do not seriously aflect the text. The 
voice of the learned world in the time of Christ, and ever since, 
the history of Pagan antiquity, and the voice of the entire litera- 
ture, history and institutions of the tiebrews, established thiis 



404 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

beyond a doubt. No one would question it unless there were 
ulterior motives to be reached. This account of creation and 
subsequent events, down to the time of Moses, was written long 
after creation, we believe at least four thousand years, and per- 
haps much longer. All nations had historic traditions. Western 
Asia had some very complete traditions. All that was preserved 
cf the history of the race, for many generations, was preserved 
in tradition. From the Accadian civilization down, there were 
written, hieroglyphic or pictorial fragments of these traditions. 
These traditions were the basis of all the old religions and' my- 
tliologies, and were preserved more or less complete in them. 
Moses may have collected and corrected these fragments in 
Western Asia and Egypt, and used them as a basis for his his- 
tory. The character of the book of Genesis accords with this 
supposition, and some think establishes it. It would not aflect 
tiie truthfulness of his history. Let us now examine this ac- 
count just as we would any archaic account, and compare it with 
the teachings of science, and see whether it contradicts the es- 
tablished facts revealed by scientific research — whether it agrees 
with them. Let us remember that man had no science of geology 
then, and no geologic terms. Moses did not know any thing 
about them, nor the people to whom he wrote. He was not 
writing a geologic treatise. 

The account is written in bold figurative language. It uses the 
terms and ideas of ordinary speech, with poetic license. As 
Moses was writing for other generations, and other peoples than 
his own, if he be allowed to explain his object, the account had 
to be written in an universal language. Just as signs, gestures 
and intonations are a natural lajiguage, so symbolic language, 
figurative language, clothing ideas in metaphorical garb, in poetic 
style, is an universal language. The account had to be written 
in tills manner. Then from the first verse of Genesis to the close 
of the third verse of the second chapter, we have the Epic of 
Creation^ written by Moses; a majestic setting forth in symbolic 
expression and figurative language^ an outline of the great facts 
of creation, in poetic style. Then the account would only be 
correct in general outline. It is unfair to subject it to the mi- 
croscopic analysis to which modern cavilers subject it. We 
can not expect scientific terms, for there were none then ; nor 
scientific precision, for it is written in poetic and symbolic style. 
The objections are these : 1st. The order of creation is not the 
same as the order of succession established by science. 2d. It 
teaches the heavens are a solid firmament in which the stars are 
set. od. It represents the creation as occupying only six days 
of twenty four hours. To the first objection we reply that the ex- 
act order need not be followed, in a poetic account, and very 
often is not. Then again such geologists as Dawson, Dana, 
Tenny, Silliman, Hitchcock, Miller and a host of our best geolo- 
gists prove that there is substantial agreement, as full agree- 
ment as can be found between poetic and literal descriptions in 
other things. The writer sets forth in poetic style what would 
appear to an eye witness as the prevailing order of existence, 



APPENDIX. 405 

or what was specially prominent in the creations of each 
period. 

Cosmical light appeared on the second day. The light of the 
sun became prominent on the face of the earth, on account of dis- 

?elling of the hitherto prevailing clouds and vapors, on the fourth, 
'hen treating this poetic account in a candid spirit, there is no 
real contradiction between it and any established truth of geology. 
In regard to the second objection, we reply that rahia means sim- 
ply what is spread or expanded, in its etymological meaning. It 
is not confined to what is spread or expanded as a plane. It does 
not contain necessarily the idea of material or substance in what 
is expanded. It may mean, and does sometimes, expanse of space. 
That is what its root meaning expresses. In this old writing Ave 
should give preference to the root or old idea. We are not com- 
pelled, by its use here, or the context, to give to it the idea of 
matter expanded in a plane, or of a plate. Even if the Hebrews in 
after ages so understood it, it does not prove that the writer in 
this sublime epic, in his poetic expression used it in that narrow 
materialistic meaning. It is unfair to take the meaning that will 
falsify the account and make the author talk nonsense, and insist on 
giving that word that meaning, evidently for the purpose of 
making him utter nonsense, and of destroying the account. In 
all other documents or writings, our scientist friends would say : 
" The author has a right to the presumption that he talked sense, 
and such meaning should be given to his words as will make sense, 
if they have such meaning, and the context does not forbid." They 
will apply this rule to all writers but those of the Bible, and allow 
it to be applied to all but them. If one attempts it with them, 
he is insulted by being sneered at in regard to the wonderful flexi- 
bility of the Hebrew language. 

The word has another meaning than the one the skeptic gives 
to it, evidently to falsify the account, and it is its root meaning, 
and on that account we give it to it, especially as it agrees with 
the poetic style and demands of the account, and his absurd 
materialistic meaning does not. The third objection, that it repre- 
sents the creation as occupying only six days of twenty-fours hours, 
is of the same character as the last. The word yam means the time 
from daylight to dark — twenty-four hours — the time of a genera- 
tion, the period in which one lived, the time of an event or thing, 
whatever it may be. We could give hundreds of cases giving 
scores of illustrations of each meaning. In this account, in the 
fifth verse, it means a period. Also in the fourth verse of the 
second chapter, it means the entire seven periods of creation. Then 
God rested on the seventh day: — ceased from creation. He is rest- 
ing or ceasing now. We live in that seventh period, or day, now. 
It is a long period of time, not twenty-four hours. Hence, hy 
parity of reasoning, the others were. Then we are not compelled 
by the context to give to yam any such meaning as a literal day. 
We certainly are not by its meaning and use in other places. Its 
use in two places in the context forbids it. One use in the con- 
text, and the one that most palpably determines its use in this 
account, most palpably forbids it. This is not a dodge, but was 



406 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

believed by old writers thousands of years before geology ever 
raised this objection. Again, this account claims to be a vision, 
a retrospective vision, as prophecy is prospective vision. In pro- 
phetic language day generally means simply a period, and not 
often twenty-four hours, especially when poetically used, as this 
is. Then the same remarks about the unfairness of the infidel 
apply here, that were made over rakia. 

Then taking the account as it really is, as a poetic description 
in symbolic language of the leading events of creation in general 
outline, and allowing the writer the same right as we concede to 
others, the presumption that he wrote sense, and that such mean- 
ing be given to his words as will make sense, and the account a 
sensible one, and taking the root meaning of ralcia, and the one 
demanded by the poetic style of the account, and taking the mean- 
ing of yam usually given in prophecy, and the meaning in which 
it is twice used in the account, and in the place which definitely 
defines how it must be taken ; we have all the agreement of the 
account with the facts that could be expected or asked in such an 
account, a poetic description, using words in their common mean- 
ing in poetry, and addressed to people utterly ignorant of science. 
Unless we have ulterior designs to accomplish and wish to make 
the writer utter nonsense, and to falsify and destroy the account, 
we will do this. If we have that object in view we will give to 
them the meaning that will make nonsense of the account, even 
if we have to reject the meaning that the context declares must 
be the meaning of the words, and the meaning that the style and 
account will allow, and allow no other. 

But is this account a revelation and inspired? Some think 
Moses was merely the mouth-piece of the Spirit that wrote it 
through him. Others, that the events passed in prophetic visions 
before him during six literal days, and he described them as they 
occurred, and in that sense day means twenty-four hours, and 
was so used, although the original of the vision was a period of 
time. Or that he speaks of each day's vision, and day means the 
period that was set forth in vision in a day, and not the time of 
the vision. Others, that he merely collected and corrected and 
united in a consistent whole, accounts already in existence, until 
he reached his own day. The fact that there are traces of tliis 
account in other systems of mythology or religion, and that we 
have in the Accadian account one very similar to this, rather es- 
tablishes the latter view. I know that it is claimed \)j some ad- 
vocates of the Bible, that all these accounts are stolen or borrowed 
from the writings of Moses, and are subsequent to him ; but such 
a position is untenable. The Indian, Egyptian and Assyrian ac- 
counts are undoubtedly older than the days of Moses, in their 
origin. This is palpably the case with the Accadian account. 
Whether both accounts, the origin of all other traditions, and 
the account of Moses, are both separate revelations, or Moses ac- 
cepted and incorporated into his book a correct record or tradi- 
tion of a previous revelation, the account in Genesis and what- 
ever that is true that may be in the other traditions, were, of 
necessity, a revelation. The original of the Accadian account 



APPENDIX. 407 

was a revelation. So was the orig-inal of whatever truth there 
was in other traditions. Our reasons for it are these: Man, 
when Moses wrote, and before this time, had no science of as- 
tronomy, and not a ghost of an idea of geology. He had no 
experience, or recollection, or knowledge of creation. If he 
attempted an account, it would have to be a gue^s, and would 
be full of errors. He did make such attempts, especially in 
attempting to amplify the fragments of tradition he had in his 
possession. All such accounts are puerile, contradictory and 
absurd. 

Many gods, men, angels, monsters, animals and monstrosities 
figure in them in the most absurd manner. Al] have the incon- 
sistency of having an universe existing before the creation they 
describe, and as a foundation for it. This account begins with 
placing the infinite, self-existent Jehovah anterior to all being ex- 
cept Himself, as the origin of all things. All things had their 
source in absolute mind. It represents him as bringing all things 
into being as immediate and absolute creations, as far as the 
origin of each great class of being is concerned. This is expressed 
in a sublime and grand style. The acts are worthy of divinity, 
and in a manner worthy of divinity. The account has been re- 
garded by all critics as the model of sublimity and grandeur in 
description, conception, and in the things described. There is 
nothing childish, puerile, or inconsistent, or merely fanciful about 
it. It is absolutely free from all the absurdities, fancies and puer- 
ilities of all other accounts. As we have shown, when properly 
interpreted, it agrees with modern science, as much as a poetic 
account in general outline could possibly agree with it. Where 
did man get this account so above the age and his condition and 
beyond his knowledge and power? It was a revelation. Whether 
revealed first to Moses, or others before Moses, and then also to 
him, or he copied it, and handed it down to us, we know not 
certainly, and care not. It is true and an inspired history of 
creation. 

We have not availed ourselves of certain saving clauses that 
some writers use in defending this account. It is true that man 
had no geology when Moses wrote, and had Moses written an 
accurate geologic account, suited to the present state of science, 
the people then could no more have understood than an alpha- 
bet class could understand LyelFs Principles of Geology. It is 
true, also, that had he written it so much above the state of 
knowledge and the human intellect, men would have rejected it 
as children reject the statements of Lyell's Geology, because they 
can not comprehend them, and would have done so for genera- 
tions. It is true, also, that it would have defeated its object, the 
salvation of man from sin, and set him to studying science. It 
is equally true that were Genesis adapted to our style of thought 
and our scientific knowledge of to-day, that four thousand years 
from now it would, no doubt, be far more unfitted to the style 
of thought than the infidel supposes it is now. It is true that 
the Bible is not a book of science, and could not be. Also, that in- 
spiration was not omniscience, nor revelation, except on its partic- 



408 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

ular object. The Bible might have spoken of creation as men 
then thought and spoke, and have accomplished its purpose. 
We, in our common speech, say the sun rises and sets, when we 
know it does not. So does the Bible. It might have done so in 
regard to creation, and no one could reasonably object. The 
spirit of inspiration might have used day and firmament as the 
infidel claims, and there could be no valid objection to it. Such 
expressions v/ould not be revelations or science any more than 
the expression the sun rises, nor an indication of the ideas and 
teachings of inspiration on such matters ; but a use of words in 
their ordinary use, and an accommodation to the necessities of 
human speech and thought. 

But we believe that revelation should speak the truth, when 
revealing the "facts of creation, and accord with scientific truth, 
as far as it does speak. We believe we have shown that Moses 
does not use the ideas and beliefs of his day. His account is 
free from them, and infinitely above them. He writes in poetic 
style, and gives, in symbolic language, in general outline, the 
leading facts. He had to do this, on account of the state of 
knowledge then, and the fact that his account was for all nations 
and generations. Symbolic language is the universal language, 
and he used it, giving to his words the meaning they have in 
]>oetry, and in such composition, prophetic vision and it agrees, 
i 1 all respects, with science, and in such a manner, and to such an 
extent, as to prove it to be a revelation, when we take into ac- 
count the age in which it was written, and the state of man's 
knowledge then, and the character of man's attempts, when un- 
inspired, to describe the same events. Such we believe to be a 
f lir and candid treatment of this remarkable account, and one 
the infidel would give, if found elsewhere. 

Noachian Deluge. 

The tradition of a flood is perhaps the nearest an universal tra- 
dition of all the historic traditions. It is found in all quarters 
of the globe, and in nearly all tribes of men. The flood was 
})ack of the historic period of Egyptian history. So it was before 
t'le Accadian civilization that preceded it. Then, the flood trans- 
pired before the emigrations of races, and while man was in the 
cradle of the race, and in Western Asia. We have two accounts 
that are almost literally and verbally the same, the Accadian or 
early Chaldean account, and the account recorded by Moses in 
(lenesis. These accounts from different nations evidently had 
the same origin. The Accadian account existed before the days 
of Moses. Moses, from the peculiar structure of Genesis, doubt- 
less took and united into a consistent whole, traditions that ob- 
tained in Western Asia, concerning many of the important 
events of man's primeval history. He united these with proper 
connections and additions. The account of the deluge is one of 
these traditions which he either took from the Accadian literature 
or from the same source from which it obtained it, for the ac- 
counts had one origin, and the Accadian is the oldest. Part of the 



APPENDIX. 409 

account is tradition, and part the work of Moses. With a few 
preparatory remarks in the VI. chapter, extending, perhaps, to 
the eighth verse, Moses copies the account of an eye-witness. 
The account is just as an eye-wdtness would write it. Just as it 
appeared* to Noah and his sons. Noah was a prince, wealthy and 
educated, and evidently as educated as the civilization of his 
day. There had been thousands of years of history and progress 
of mankind who were yet in the cradle of the race. 

The remains of man's work in that region, the pyramids and 
other works, that were erected shortly after Noah, show thai 
the building of the ship was not an impossible task in his day. 
How much of this account in the Bible is true? With a proper 
interpretation, all of it. Great catastrophes have destroyed life on 
portions of the earth's surface often during geologic times. Great 
floods have devastated portions of it, in consequence of geologic 
catastrophes and subsidence of land. The coal formations are a 
proof of this. A great catastrophe within the human epoch has 
devastated Western Asia. The Dead Sea is thirteen hundred 
feet lower than the Mediterranean. The Caspian is eighty feet 
lower. The Jordan, it is thought, once flowed through a tcady 
or valley to the Eed Sea. A great geologic catastrophe, pro- 
ducing a flood, devastated this region. It happened in human 
liistory, for man has a tradition and history of it. The race was 
in the cradle of the race in Western Asia and had not separated into 
races and languages then. The catastrophe affected the whole 
human race, and destroyed it, except a few saved in a boat or 
vast ship. It devastated the then habitable and inhabited earth. 
The ones saving themselves in the ark, saved their domestic 
animals with them. One of them, as an eye-witness, described it 
as it appeared to them. Moses used the account. The writer, as 
was customary in the hyperbolic and extravagant speech of West- 
ern Asia, and of that early period of our race, speaks of what 
was devastated — the inhabited earth — as the " whole earth." Of 
the animals of that region, as all the animals. Of the animals 
saved, as all the entire animal kingdom. He writes as it looked 
to him, excited as he was by so awful a catastrophe. 

Then, making necessary allowances for the Jiyperbole and ex- 
travagance that characterized the speech of Western Asia, and 
the early periods of the history of our race, and for the exag- 
gerations of an eye-wittiess, excited by the awful catastrophe he 
witnessed, it is correct. There was a flood which destroyed all 
men -but a few, and devastated all the then inhabited globe. All 
animals of the then inhabited globe were destroyed, except Avhat 
man saved. These few men saved themselves and these animals 
in an. ark. The Bible account is historically definite, consistent, 
and of deep moral significance. Of great antiquity. Forms an 
essential part of a grand religion. It is true. 

Joshua's commanding the Sun and Moon to stand still. 

It should be born in mind that in those days of the writing of 
the book of Joshua, there was no punctuation, as there is in 



410 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEM^.. 

our printing and writing now. Quotations could not be sepa- 
rated from the au^^hor's language as they can now. On tliat 
account they were quoted as a part of the author's language to 
a degree not practiced now. Often they were not separated from 
it. Let the reader turn to Judges v, and read the " Song of 
Deborah and Barak." In it, it is declared "the stars, the hosts 
from heaven, in their courses, fought against Sisera.'' All under- 
stood this to be poetry, and no one objects to it. But suppose a 
writer in the days of the Kings were writing the history of his 
people, and were describing the battle of Barak Avith Sisera, and 
were to say. This is the time when, as it is Avritten in the '' Song 
of Deborah and Barak," " the stars in their courses fought against 
Sisera, and the hosts of heaven." All would understand it to be 
a quotation of poetry, and not a historic statement. There was 
a Hebrew poetic book — Jasher. In this book, with the license 
of poetry, the author declared that "Joshua commanded the sun 
and moon to stand still, and the Lord hearkened, and the sun and 
moon stood still for a day." The writer of Joshua quotes this 
poetic declaration of one of the favorite poems of his people, and 
quotes it in the literal manner of the composition of that day, in 
precisely the manner we have supposed above. Just as we would 
understand one to be poetic license, so we do the other. - There 
is no more contradiction of science in the quotation from the 
book Jasher in Joshua, than there is the Song of Deborah and 
Barak, recorded in Judges ; only in one the whole song is quoted, 
in the other only a paragraph. It is quoted in the literal manner 
of the writing of that day, as though a part of the text; hence 
the misinterpretation and confusion over it, and the desperate 
attempts to do what never can be done, make it accord with 
science, or explain away its contradiction of science, if we take 
it as a narration of a historic fact by the historian, and not a 
quotation of a poetic hyperbole, from a national poem, and 
quoted in the literal manner sanctioned by the usages of writing 
in that day, and caused to some extent by lack of punctuation. 

Absurdity of Materialism. 

We have spoken of the absurdity of the idea that mind can be 
correlated with physical force, and asked what knows such corre- 
lation. If mind be physical force, then physical force knows the 
correlation of physical force with physical force. Soma year's 
ago Abner Kneeland was bothering some young preachers with 
objections to the idea that there was any such entity or existence 
as a Spirit. Mind was merely a function of matter. Matter was 
the only existence. At last he appealed to a gentleman present, 
who had taken no part in the conversation (Colonel Knapp, of 
.Winchester, III), and asked him what he thought of it. "You 
believe in the existence of matter as an entity, a reality, a real 
existence?" queried Knapp. "Yes, sir," he replied, very confi- 
dently. " Why do you believe in the existence of matter?" con- 
tinued Knapp. "Because it is self-evident," said Kneeland. 
promptly. " SLdf-evident to what, if there be no existence but 



APPENDIX. -^ 411 

matter? Self-evident to itself? The existence of matter self- 
evident to matter ?" queried Knapp. Kneeland's answer was 
never given. We submit it to all materialists. Also the ques- 
tion, if mind be physical force, and be correlated with physical 
force, what knows it; measures the correlation? What is the 
standard ? What is the measure, and what is the expression of 
the equivalence ? Yv^hat is the momentum and velocity; and 
other characteristics of physical force of mind ? Can it be 
measured off and weighed and computed as we can physical force? 

MilVs Abmrd Attempt at Wit. 

Evolutionists have ever been nonplused by the application of 
their own favorite axiom, " Ux niliilo nihil fit " — " Out of nothing, 
nothing comes" — to their own system of evolution of all things 
out of blind, irrational, insensate matter and force, and by blind, 
irrational, insensate matter and force. They wish to eliminate 
all idea and possibility of intelligence having any thing to do 
with the origin of the course of evoluti(m. Mind, intelligence, 
reason, and mental and moral nature and character, have been 
evolved out of blind, irrational, insensate matter and force, and 
by means of them. When they have taken this position, as they 
must to get rid of all intelligence in the origin of evolution, and 
in control of evolution, the query is presented: How can matter 
and force, blind, irrational, insensate matter and force, evolve 
what is not in them, if out of nothing, nothing comes? Some, 
like Tyndall, assume that all possibilities of being were poten- 
tially in the primordial matter and force. But science demonstrates 
that the condition in which the scientist claims matter and force 
were primordially, renders all idea of life an absurdity. Then 
common sense scouts the idea that reason, thought and moral 
nature were potentially or actually latent, or nascent, or active, 
in fire-mist of blind, irrational, insensate matter and force. 
Mill's attempts to set to one side the objection that matter and 
force can not evolve what is not in them, with a shallow witti- 
cism. He says : " It no more follows, that because man is intelli- 
gent, his source or cause must be intelligence, than because we 
find pepper in the soup, there must be pepper in the cook." The 
evasion will not let him out of the dilemma. 

If the making of the soup was an evolution, and the cook 
evolved the soup entirely out of herself, we would say that if we 
found pepper in the soup, there must be pepper in the cook, for 
if the cook evolved the soup entirely out of herself, there could 
be nothing in the soup that was not originally in the cook. And 
we Avould say if there was pepper in the soup and none in the 
cook, then the soup could have been evolved out of the cook, for 
evolution could not put any thing in the product that was not 
originally in that out of which it was evolved. Mill's illustration 
is a most admirable* refutation of his attempt to claim that mat- 
ter and force can evolve what was not originally in them. If he 
means to apply the witticism to the reasoning on causation, it 
is equally fallacious. We say that man, an intelligence, must 



412 THE PROBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

have had an intelligent cause, nDt on the principle that the effect 
must be like its cause, or the cause like the effect, but on the 
ground that an effect must have an adequate cause. An unin- 
telligent cause is not adequate to produce an intelligent effect. 
A cause may produce what is less than itself, but never what is 
greater, much what is infinitely greater, as must have been the 
case, if an unintelligent cause produced intelligence as an effect. 
Again, in material and rational nature, there are effects that 
must have had an intelligent cause, not on the ground that 
causes must be like the effects, but on the ground that causes 
must be adequate to produce effects. This attempt of Mills is as 
shallow and fallacious as Spencer's attempt to set to one side the 
design argument by the watch illustration. 

T!ie Man with Two Wives. 

Tn listening to an attempt made by one of tne most eminent 
advocates of evolution, to illustrate and demonstrate the action 
of the principle of natural selection, the author was struck with 
it as an illustration of the utter blindness displayed by these per- 
sons, as to the real effect of their principle of natural selection, 
if we were to apply it as a cause to 'produce the phenomena un- 
der investigation. He was attempting to account for certain 
animals changing their color during different seasons of the year. 
He took the case of the large, hare of the Northern States. It 
is a dark color in summer, when there is no snow, so that its 
color is so like the old forest leaves on which it lies, that it is 
very difficult to see it. It is white in winter, and can lay on the 
snow, and it can hardly be noticed at any distance, and is gen- 
erally passed without notice. "Now," said he, very learnedly, 
" the theory of creation assumes that intelligence so created the 
hare that it is white in winter and brown in summer. Intelli- 
gence adapted the color of the hare to its surroundings to protect 
it from its enemies." Well, it does look very much as though 
that was the case. " But," continued he, " Science says that in 
summer the enemies of the hare could see and destroy the Avhite 
or light-colored ones, and tne brown ones escaped. In winter the 
enemies of the hare could see and destroy the brown ones, and 
the white ones escaped. So you see that natural selection se- 
lected the brown ones who escaped in summer, and the white 
ones who escaped in winter, and thus the white color of the 
hare in winter, and the brown color of the same animal in 
trimmer, was caused by natural selection. The conditions 
adapted the animal to themselves, or the animal adapted itself 
to its conditions, and was not adapted to them by some higher 
intelligence." 

A more complete jumble of words, and preposterous attempt to 
make a case out of the very opposite of what was needed to estab- 
lish it never was seen. There was no natural selection to save 
the animals, but, on the contrary, to destroy them. Their enemies 
selected them. Those that survived did so not because nature 
selected them for that purpose, but because they escaped natural 



APPENDIX. 413 

selection of their enemies. Then destructive agency is appealed 
to as preservative agency. It seems to common sense that if the 
enemies of the hares destroyed the white ones that could not 
evade them in summer, and then destroyed the brown who escaped 
in summer but could not evade them now, there would be no 
hares left. Then the absurdity of using this to account for 
changes made in such opposite directions in so short a time. How 
could the operation of such destructive agency make the same 
animal exactly the opposite in color during one part of the year, 
to what it was the other part? I heard of a Mormon who had two 
wives. One was an old woman and the other was a young one. 
The Mormon spent an equal portion of time with each alternately, 
for they would not live peaceably in the same house. AVhen he 
was with the old wife, she pulled out black hairs, for she wanted 
him to look as old as herself. When he was with the young wife 
she pulled out white hairs, for she wanted him to look as young 
as herself. Here was the principle of natural selection at work. 
According to the lecturer, the Mormon's hair became black while 
he was with the young wife, and white while he was with the old 
wife. Unfortunately for the theory, that was not the case. Like 
Jack Sprat and his wife, one of whom ate all the fat and the other 
all the lean, and who cleared the cloth and left the platter clean, 
one wife pulled all black hairs and the other all white ones, and 
left the Mormon's head as bald as a ripe pumpkin. Common sense 
says that what the lecturer called natural selection, would have 
exterminated the hares, as the Mormon's wives extirpated the hairs 
of the unlucky Mormon's head. 

Common sense, says also, that intelligence gave to the hare those 
colors as its protection, and adapted the color to the surroundings, 
and that neither the animal adapted itself to its surroundings, for 
it had neither the intelligence nor the power to do so. Observe 
what an absurd attempt to strip the Creator of the results of his 
wisdom and power, and absurdly ascribe them to the hare. Nor 
did unintelligent conditions adapt the hare to themselves, for the 
conditions, as far as they operated at all, destroyed the hare. A 
careful analysis of nearly every supposed case of natural selection 
would develop as great absurdity. Intelligence, and the work of 
intelligence, are ascribed to animals and unintelligent conditions, 
and destructive agencies are appealed to as preservative agency. 
Any thing to get rid of intelligent cause. 



Mimicry of Nature, 

The change of color in animals at different seasons, that enables 
them to escape their enemies, suggests another Avonderful feature 
of nature— what is called its mimicry. There are insects popularly 
called walking-sticks, that when in danger will fold up their legs 
and look so nearly like a dead stick or piece of twig, that unless 
they arc seen doing it, they Avill escape the search of almost any 
one. Evolution supposes that some nondescript insect once ex- 
isted. Those who were most like sticks escaped. Of these, 
those that were most like sticks escaped and perpetuated them- 



414 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

selves, and the process continued in that direction during an 
almost inconceivable time, until the present wonderful mimicry 
is reached. But there are some questions to be answered. First, 
there would have to be a vast change before the change would be 
at all useful, or operate in saving the insect. What kept this pro- 
cess in operation persistently in one direction for such a vast 
period until the change became great enough to have a particle 
of preservative effect ? Then the act of the animal in folding up 
its legs: what principle of natural selection did that? Here is 
a display of considerable intelligence. Then intelligence must 
have implanted the instinct that acts so intelligently. The author 
once accidentally detected a butterfly in which this mimicry was 
still more wonderfully displayed. It was flying around, and flew 
so near him as to be alarmed. It folded up and lay on some dead 
oak leaves, and looked so exactly like them that it w:as only by 
turning each leaf near vhere he saw it last that he found it by 
touch. 

He laid it and a leaf on his hand and examined them, and 
asked if blind, irrational matter and force wrought out such a 
result. The color was a perfect mimicry. So was the head an 
exact mimicry of the stem of the leaf when it had been attached 
to the tree. There was the stem running up through the leaf, 
and its branches off, all mimicked. Not long after he detected 
another that fastened itself onto a twig, and mimicked a green 
leaf in the same way. How did all this come into existence? 
They mimiciked oak leaves, the prevailing leaf of that region, 
and the prevailing variety of oak. One mimicked a dead leaf, 
the other a green one. If natural selection did this, what was the 
insect before it was changed into such a wonderful imitation? 
What preserved it until change enough was made to produce any 
preservative effect ? What kept the influences at work during all 
this vast period of time, until such a wonderful result was 
reached as would be preservative ? I know it may not be scien- 
tific to ask such questions, but still reason loill ask. A negro ora- 
tor was once expatiating on creation. He described the process 
of making man until he was set up against a fence to dry. 
"Look here," said a skeptical listener: "who make dat fence?" 
"O you stop your noise," said the preacher. "Such questions 
spoil the best preaching in the world." So such questions may 
spoil the best theories in the world, but common sense will ask 
them. It will not believe that blind matter and force, or un- 
intelligent conditions, ever produced such wonderful acts of in- 
telligence. 

Blind, Irrational, Insensate Matter and Force. 

Not long since, in a public discussion with the leading advocate 
of evolution, the leading advocate now on the rostrum, at least in 
the United States, the author invariably presented the issue con- 
cerning each phenomenon ascribed to evolution thus : " Can 
blind, irrational, insensate matter and force evolve such a phe- 
nomenon?" His opponent complained bitterly. He said it was 



appi-:ndix. 415 

like attempting to excite the odium theologicum against an oppo- 
nent. It was attempting to create a prejudice against evolution by 
calling it bad names. It was an attempt to do what I censured so 
severely in the infidel— attach absurdities to the theory, load ab- 
surdities onto it, until I made it. absurd and ridiculous, and broke 
it down. In reply, the author asked him if'the expression was not 
literally true? To get rid of intelligence in the cause of existences 
and phenomena, had not he made matter and physical force the 
origin of every thing? Had not he emptied them of all intelli- 
gence, and severed them from all connection with intelligence in 
the beginning of evolution, and in the course, until man was 
evolved? He could not deny it. Then the author continued: 
" Is not matter, is not physical force, insensate ? Do they have 
sensation at the commencement of evolution, or during a larger 
portion of the course of evolution? If they do not, then they are 
insensate. Are matter and physical force rational ? Were they 
at the commencement of evolution ? Were they rational during 
the course of evolution?" He dare not say that they were. 
Then they are irrational. 

Are they endowed with foreknowledge, prescience and pre- 
vision ? Were they at the beginning of evolution or during evo- 
lution ? Then are not they blind ? Then when I call them blind, 
irrational, insensate matter and force, I speak the exact truth, 
and I present the issue just as it ought to be made. The issue 
that the evolutionist ought to be compelled to meet is this: 
Were these phenomena and existences evolved out of blind, ir- 
rational, insensate matter and force, and by blind, irrational, in- 
sens.ite matter and force? He ought not to be allowed to evade 
the issue, cheat his readers out of a sense of the utter absurdity of 
his tlieory, and to cover the nakedness of his system by any subter- 
fuge. Neither by taking refuge in an Inscrutable Power, as does 
Spencer and Huxley. Nur by audaciously foisting into blind, 
irrational matter and force all that he wants to draw out of them, 
as does Tyndall. Nor by such learned phrases as homogeneity, 
heterogeneity, differentiation, integration, etc., with Spencer. 
Nor by such convenient personifications as laws of nature, 
nature of things, or natural selection, or survival of fittest, etc., 
with which Darwin hides out of view the nakedness of blind, ir- 
rational matter and force, and substitutes between them and the 
reader words, such as selection and law, that the reader uncon- 
cioasly accepts as the cause of the phenomena, because they are 
acts of intelligence, without asking,: "What- selects? What 
makes the law?" If he were to do this, and remember that it is 
blia 1, irrational matter and force that does all this, that is really 
th3 source of all this wonderful phenomena^ he would reject the 
spejulation as an insult to his common sense. 

If these evolutionists were compelled to tell the naked truth, 
.inl not allowed such subterfuges: if they were compelled to write 
anl say "blind, irrational matter and force," instead of those delu- 
siva phrases, "natural selection," "laws of nature," "natural 
law," their books would never be written, one syllable of them, 
nor would one of them ever utter a sentence in favor of evolu- 



416 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEISfS 

tion. Let one of them place himself before the audience and 
use the term?; " blind, irrational matter and force," where tiic 
theist uses " Go(i," as he ought if as honest as the theist, aiid he 
would break down under the sense of the utter absurdity in ten 
minutes. Yet this is just what he should do. In setting up 
evolution as the true theory of the origin of existences and phe- 
nomena, instead of creation by God or intelligence, common 
honesty and truthfulness demand that he say candidly "blind, 
irrational matter and force" evolved each existence and phe- 
nomena out of blind, irrational matter and force. To this- issue 
he sliould be held, as Sisyphus was held to the task of rolling the 
stone up the mountain side. Let the reader in reading these 
speculations continually set to one side all such subterfuges and 
evasions, and carefully and resolutely place in the speculation in 
their stead what truth demands should be there, "blind, irrational 
matter and force," and he will never read through a single book, 
nor listen till the close of a lecture. The absurdity of this 
mockery of all reason would be too overpowering to be borne. 

Parolles and His Drum. 

One of the most contemptible characters in Shakespeare is the 
braggart Parolles. He was continually boasting of what marvel- 
ous exploits he could do, and had done. The little he did was 
magnified into a prodigy. His commander has the unreasonable 
injustice to ask him to perform one of these miraculous exploits, 
as a proof thjit he had done what he claimed he had done, and a 
proof that he could do what he boa>sted he could do. In 
like manner Ave read in speculations of evolutionists of what con- 
ditions have done, and of what they can do. It is assumed they 
have done certain things in the past, as serenely as though the 
speculator had been eye-witness to the transaction. It is assumed 
they are doing now, or can do certain things, as serenely as 
though the speculator had witnessed similar things a thousand 
times. Some times a small variation or change is cited, and then 
spread over all the phenomena of nature. Or a multitude of 
such small variations, and all nearly alike, are cited as though a 
million persons of one trade could do the work of all trades. Or a 
slight change in an organ is cited as proof of how it was pro- 
duced, as if the effect of the sun in changing a person's color 
would account' for the individual. Or things that are connected 
with the variation are assumed as the causeof the variation, and 
of what is varied, because they happened to be connected in 
time, like the Tenterden steeple was the cause of Godwin's sands, 
and also created the sand and the land that was changed into 
them. 

These speculators should be made show, by actual demonstra- 
tion, that their conditions and causes can produce the phenomena, 
and how they did, and that they actually did so. The reader is 
bewildered with phrases and speculations and strange phenomena, 
and allows the evolutionist to assume the whole question. If the 
reader were to stop and take such an organ as the eye, and study 



APPENDIX. 417 

it until he understood it, and then attempt to trace out the for- 
mation of that organ, by the operation of the unintelligent con- 
ditions of evolution out of blind, insensate, irrational matter and 
force, he would stop before he commenced so absurd a task. If 
the evolutionist were like Parolles, compelled to apply his theory 
to such a case, and trace out and illustrate its operations in the 
evolution of such an organ, he would shiver over it as Parolles 
did over his boast to recover his drum. That the reader may 
appreciate the utter weakness and nakedness of the system, let 
us undertake to apply it. Let us take the whale. It i^; an im- 
mense warm-blooded, air-breathing mammal, that brings forth 
and suckles its young, as does the cow, or any land mammal. 
This enormous animal, that has been found one hundred feet 
long, and of the weight of an army of land animals, has been 
evolved by the operation of unintelligent conditions, influencing 
blind, irrational, insensate matter and force. What was the pri- 
mordial germ of such an animal ? Was it the same as that from 
which the mouse descended ? Where did it begin its course of 
development? On land, as conditions would demand? If so, 
how came it ever to take to the sea? This is in utter violation 
of all conditions and natural selection. 

If in the sea, how did such conditions develop an air-breath- 
ing warm-blooded animal that procreates and brings forth and 
suckles its young like a land animal ? These results are in di- 
rect opposition to any and all conceivable effects of the condi- 
tions. Then the same conditions produced at the same time, 
out of other primordial germs, cold-blooded, water-breathing 
animals, that produce eggs, and have no care of the offspring, 
nor a particle of intense maternal instinct there is in the whale. 
Will some one who believes that evolution is as clearly estab- 
lished as the Coperniciin system trace before us the evolution of 
the whale, as the astronomer runs back through the motions of 
the heavenly bodies, and tells when there were eclipses and tran- 
sits? That is the boast. It is as clearly demonstrated as the 
Copernicp.n theory of the universe. Then take the family of birds. 
We can see or conceive of the locomotion of animals on land, or 
of fishes and animals in water. But the locomotion of an animal 
many times heavier than air, through the air. What could give 
any tendency to such locomotion to a land or water animal ? 
Then several of the most difficult and profound problems in me- 
chanic?, have been solved as man can not, with his thousands of 
years of study, with all his intelligence. Then the primordial 
germ or type from which the bird was evolved. Did it once 
move on land ? If so, how came it in violation of all conditions 
and natural selection to take to the air? If originally an air 
animal, what solved all these profound problems, and adapted 
the bird to the air? Or if a land animal, did unintelligent con- 
ditions operating on blind, irrational matter and force, solve 
these problems ? Then how did conditions compel a land animal 
to leave the land, and undertake that inconceivable locomotion 
through the air ? 

What gave a tendency in that direction? What kept up this 



'418 THE PKOBLRM OF PROBLKMS. 

tendency ? What preserved and co-ordinated results in the evo- 
lution, for such a vast period of time? Let us conceive for a 
moment of this nondescript land animal ceasing to use its non- 
descript limbs on laud, the place they are adapted to, and to 
which every condition would direct and confine them, and prac- 
ticing the attempt to use them in the air, for whicli they were 
utterly unadapted, and persevering in such useless attempts for 
countless cycles of time, for these changes have been so gradual 
as to be imperceptible during historic and geologic ages, until at 
last all this struggle, that was utterly useless to countless genera- 
tions, became useful ! There could be no use of the organ, or 
tendency to use it until it was complete and fit to be used. Use 
can not develop an organ, for it can not be used until it exists 
to be used. Hence the above course of development of an useless 
organ is the height of absurdity. The author once presented this 
case to an eminent lecturer on evolution. He sneeringly and 
discourteously replied that evolution did not teach or suppose 
any such case, and taunted the author with his ignorance of 
evolution. Will he or any other one tell us what evolution teaches 
or supposes in regard to the evolution of the wing of the bird f Does 
it teach any thing at all, except perhaps to assert the evolution 
of the wing by unintelligent conditions during an immense pe- 
riod of time, when it can not give a ghost of an idea of how it 
was done, or proof that it has been done, and common sense 
can present thousands of the clearest and most palpable reasons 
that render such an evolution impossible and incoiiceivable ? 

If the evolution hypothesis be as clearly demonstrated as the 
Copernican System, will the demonstrator trace the evolution of 
the wing of the bird back as the astronomer does the relative posi- 
tions of the heavenly bodies? Let us take one more illustration 
still more wonderful. Let us follow the evolution of the eye. We 
have already shown that evolution can not account for the origin 
and development of the senses or sensation. Nor can it for the 
organs used in sensation. Away back in the eternal past, a non- 
descript something, evolved out of a germ, was affected in an un- 
usual and entirely new manner by light. By some means one 
particular part of its organization became unusually sensitive to 
light. This tendency continued. This in the course of countless 
generations led to the formation of a nondescript aggregation of mat- 
ter, in a certain part of this nondescript's nondescript organiza- 
tion, that modified force in such a way as to evolve the sensation 
of sight. This continued until we have that wonderful organ the 
eye, and all its varieties. Some have one lens and others thousands. 
S )me see by night, others can gaze on the noonday sun. Some 
S3S in water, others in air. Some see but a few feet, others like 
the eagle's can rival a telescope. Now let us ask st)me questions, 
even though it spoils the best theory in the world. How came 
that nondescript's organization or the matter in it to be sensitive 
to light ? How came there to be any thing there to respond to 
light and have any sensation ? Then how came such slight influ- 
ences to be perpetuated and co-ordinated in an ascending scale for 
countless ages, through countless generations, until they become 



APPENDIX. i 419 



k 



even in the slightest degree useful ? How came the profound ideas 
of reason, displayed in tlie construction of the eye, to be realized? 
Then the different ideas of reason realized in the construction of 
different kinds of eyes? Then how came the most rudimental eye 
to remain in existence for countless ages, and be unchanged down 
to the present time, as is the case ? How came all the intermediate 
varieties of eyes, as you call them, to remain unchanged through all 
conditions and changes of conditions down to the present, as is the 
case ? Conditions are not producing one particle of these changes 
that you claim evolved the eye, and have not during the count- 
less ages of geologic epochs. 

Then so delicate and sensitive is the eye, that it can not be 
changed, or will not admit of change of conditions. Any such at- 
tempt destroys it. All talk of evolution of so sensitive and deli- 
cate an organ by conditions is absurd. And another trouble 
arises, also, in tliis supposition. Away back, early in the geologic 
ages, at the time when, if this theory be true, if there were any 
eyes at all, they must have been rudimental, is found the trilobite, 
a highly organized animal in certain respects, with a perfect eye 
of the highest order, and this trilobite is absolutely without any 
ancestral forms or typical progenitors. It appears suddenly with- 
out any preceding lower types, with a perfect eye of the highest 
order without .any previous rudimental eyes, out of which it was 
evolved. Such facts will spoil the best theory in the world, unless 
we say, as did the Frenchman, '' so much the worse lor the facts." 
Such are a few, and only an infinitesimal part of the difficulties 
that beset our scientist Parolles, in his attempt to capture his evo- 
lution drum. But let him be held resolutely to his work. Let 
him tell us what sort of thing this inconceivable nondescript, that 
was varied by conditions until all we see were evolved out of it — 
what sort of thing was it ? Where did it come from ? Where did 
the conditions come from ? How came it to be possessed of this 
wonderful power of adaptability to conditions? What preserved 
and co-ordinated the results in the ascending scale? How came 
the same conditions to produce such contradictory and opposite 
results? How could they evolve out of matter and force what 
was not in them, or in themselves? Have conditions one particle 
of causal efficiency? Can they cause any thing? Can they vary 
any thing? Can they produce the thing varied? Can they do 
more than to permit the variation to exist when it has come into 
beiiig independent of themselves? Can they produce just the 
opposite of themselves ? And, above all, let the advocates of this 
de.nonstrated theory, trace before us the course of evolution, and 
prove that conditions could produce such results. Show us how 
t icy did it. And prove that they did it. Then we will have a 
demonstration such as we have for the Copernican system. Then 
let the reader avoid being deceived by the various subterfuges of • 
the evolutionist, and hold the theorizer to the practical test. 
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating." Show us how this 
could be done, how it was done, and prove that it was done so 
This is the method of physical science. The evolutionist attempts 
to explain the origin of all existences and phenomena by physical 



420 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

science. Let him conform to its methods, and do it as physical 
science demands. The theory , of creation, resting in rational 
tliought, appeals to rational thought and not to physical science, 
as does evolution. 

Proper Tests of the Two Theories. 

Let us anticipate a retort that maybe made by the evolutionist. 
He may say, " Will you give us a practical illustr;ition of your 
theory of creation, such as you demand of us? When we see some- 
thing created, we ought to accept your theory, and not till then, 
according to the ordeal to which you subject mine. Serve both 
alike?" We reply that no such retort can be made, nor such de- 
mand made, for the two theories do not rest on the same methods 
of proof. The creation theory rests on the methods of rational 
thought. It is based on the deductions of reason, from the phe- 
nomena and characteristics of the phenomena. The evolution 
theory appeals to conditions now in existence as causes. It pro- 
poses to solve the problem by physical science, hence it must use 
the methods of physical science, and present the proofs of physical 
science. If the author were to attempt to convince a man of the 
existence of spirit by the methods of rational thought, appealing 
to phenomena and their characteristics, and to deduce the exist- 
ence of spirit as a rational conclusion from the phenomena and 
their characteristics, and a spiritist were to come forward and say, 
"That is not the real proof. We know that there is spirit, be- 
cause spirits materalize themselves, and we can see, feel and hear 
them ; '' the inquirer would say, " Well, materialize a spirit, and 
let us see, feel and hear it, and then we wall have your proof, and 
not till then." Such a demand would be just, but no such de- 
mand could be made on me. I had promised only rational proof. 
Indeed, I would deny that such proof, as the spiritist offered, 
c>)uld be given, or that it was a question susceptible of any such 
proof 

In the case before us we deny that the question of the origin 
of existences and phenomena can be settled in the way in which 
the scientist undertakes to settle it. It can not be settled or 
tested by his methods, for it does not furnish the data that such 
methods require. The scientist admits that the genesis of a new 
species, or a new existence or phenomenon, is something of which 
he has no experience or knowledge. Then he can not apply his 
methods, for he has not the data. Until he has such data, he can 
do nothing wdth the question, and is undertaking wdiat he is 
utterly impotent to do. As it stands at present, he can only fur- 
ni.sli us the phenomena as they now transpire, and have since long 
l)ef()re human experience and their nature and characteristics. 
Then from these reason, as a question of inductive reasoning, 
rational thought, must settle the question. Science stops with 
f'lrnishing the phenomena and their nature and characteristics, 
lleason does the rest. Bnt when the scientist claims, as did 
Huxley, to give a demonstration by the methods of physical 
sc:lence, to solve the question by the methods of physical science, 



APPENDIX. 421 

we have a right to insist that he fulfill his promise. As in the 
illustration, we say to him, "Sir, prove that your conditions that 
are in existence and operation now, and must produce the same 
results now, if they ever did, ca?i produce such results. Show us 
liow they did it. Prove that they did. Prove to us that sucli 
causes produced such effects. That the phenomena were pro- 
duced by such causes. Give us the practical proof demanded by 
physical science, such as is given by the astronomer for the Co- 
pernican system, for you assert you have the same proof." Such 
a demand is fair, and justice demands that it be made and met, 
since the evolutionist promises just such proof 

But no such demand can be made of the creationist. Pie pro- 
fesses to give no such proof His course of proof admits and de- 
mands no such, tests. He admits that there can be no practical 
test, in the lower use of the word practical, for Ave have no such 
phenomena transpiring now. He claims that the question can 
not be settled by any such method. He claims that it can only 
be settled as a question of rational thought, by inductive reason- 
ing. He takes the phenomena, and their characteristics, and us- 
ing the fundamental principle of all inductive philosophy, he de- 
termines the cause from the nature of the effects. He gives the 
highest method of proof, the purely rational, that which appeals 
to reason in its highest and noblest exercise. His conclusion is 
the only one that reason can accept, the one that reason gives by 
every law of its being, and with every power of its existence, and 
is reached in the only way that the conclusion can be reached, as 
reason declares. Hence, we insist on the test we have presented, 
for that is what the evolutionist promised, and insist that he can 
give no such test, and that the question admits of no such proof. 
We give the proof we promise, and the only proof the question 
admits of, and the proper test of our proof, and the highest proof 
and test. 

Evolution Hypothesis and Copernican System. 

When atheists are asked why they do not accept the idea of 
God, if human reason be their standard, since reason has so uni- 
versally believed it, they reply that they are no more bound to 
accept it than they are the old idea, once so prevalent, that the 
earth is a plane, and tlie center of the universe, and the sun re- 
volves around it. They are no more bound to accept the theory 
of creation, than they are the Ptolemaic hypothesis which elab- 
orated and undertook to make scientific the above popular no- 
tion. Huxley presents the evolution hypothesis as the Coperni- 
can substitute for the Ptolemaic theory, creation. But the cases 
are not parallel. The idea of God is, in one sense, an intuition, 
an immediate intuition. Man has an intuition, a constitutional 
tendency, to worship, to have aspirations for higher, superior be- 
ings. He has no such aspiration toward the old idea of the 
shape of the earth. Again, the data and course of reasoning are 
not the same. One is a false sense perception of phenomena 
Tiie other is a clear deduction of reason from characteristics of 



422 i^HE i'rohlimm of problems. 

phenomena, concerning which there is no misconception, for the 
atheist himself ascribes them to the phenomena. There is not 
the remoteness in one case that there is in the other. Then, 
again, when the evolntionist explodes the creation theory, as the 
Ptolemaic hypothesis has been exploded, we will abandon it. 
And when he demonstrates it, as the Copernican system has been 
demonstrated, we will accept the evolution hypothesis. This 
illustration of the evolutiojiist, and the comparisons he makes in 
it, are rather shrewd, but are based on a rather impudent as- 
sumption. As matters stand the creation theory occupies the 
position of the Copernican system. It accords with the highest 
ideas of reason, and is verified by them. The evolution hypothe- 
sis occupies the precise position of the Ptolemaic hypothesis. It 
is not based on the highest and broadest deductions of reason. 
It is contradicted by palpable demands of the problem. It is 
verified by no true scientific method or observations. The evo- 
lutionist should change places of the theories in his illustration. 

Another Absurdity in Illustration. 

A prominent infidel lecturer undertakes to illustrate the_ ab- 
surdity of the design argument, thus: "The design ^^rgument 
claims that because we see order in nature, as we do in man's 
works, we should reason that they had like causes, intelligent 
causes. According to this reasoning, if I see a rat hole, and 
learn by experience that it was made by a rat; and I see Mammoth 
Cave, an almighty big hole, I should conclude it was made by an 
almighty big rat." In the first place the word rat, on which he 
makes his ridicule turn, and which is the gist of his reply, has no 
place in the illustration. It is introduced to throw ridicule on 
what can not be met by argument. We do not, in the design 
argument, say that an almighty man created the universe, but 
absolute intelligence. Intelligence is the only point in the argu- 
ment. Then the illustration is not germain. If the same charac- 
teristics are in one effect as in the other, we would conclude, and 
correctly, that as one was produced by intelligence, it matters 
not whether of rat or man, so must tlie other be. The species of 
the organization of the intelligence has nothing to do with the 
argument. The argument should be, "If we find certain charac- 
teristics that can be traced to intelligence as their only conceiv- 
able cause, in one case, and then find the same characteristics in 
the other case, we should ascribe them to a like cause, intelligent 
cause." Then the absurdity is in an absurd element that the 
skeptic introduces into the illustration that is utterly foreign to 
it. And also the illustrations of cave and hole are not analogous. 
Uut we affirm that intelligence caused the cave, and the only 
difference is that a vastly greater intelligence operated, and used 
second causes to produce a vastly greater result. But the eviden- 
ces of intelligence are as clear in one as in the other, and vastly 
more palpable in the case of the cave, and of an infinitely higher 
order. ^V^e notice these attempted evasions to show that in all 
such cases the infidel eitlier assumes the i)oint at issue, as in the 



APPENDIX. 423 

use of the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories, to represent the 
creation and evolution theories; or he introduces some foreign 
element that is absurd, and undertakes, in this waj, to prove that 
the idea he is opposing is absurd. He rarely attempts to meet 
the argument fairly, and to set it to one side by fair reasoning. 
No set of reasoners need as close watching as these men, who are 
so scientific, and are continually criticizing their opponents, for 
their unscientific methods. 

Review of I'luxleifs Demonstration of Evolution. 

The most important and exciting event that has transpired in 
the scientific and literary world during the past autumn, was the 
visit of T. H. Huxley, the eminent English scientist, author and 
lecturer, to our country. What rendered his visit one of great 
interest, and clothed it with special importance, was the an- 
nouncement, made in advance, that he would deliver three lec- 
tures, in which he would do what the world has long been de- 
manding, and will continue to demand, before it will accept the 
evolution hypothesis, and what its advocates have been so long 
seeking and attempting, a demonstration of the hypothesis known 
as the evolution theory. Every one expected from such an an- 
nouncement, and had a right to expect it, that undeniable facts 
would be presented, and that the theory of evolution would be 
deduced from them in the clearest and plainest manner, and 
established as a clearly proved scientific theory, and a demonstra- 
ted system of scientific truth. The reputation of the lecturer, 
as the ablest living lecturer and advocate of evolution, raised the 
expectations of all parties very high; some in eager anticipation 
of having at last what they had long sought and desired in vain ; 
and others in gravest apprehension lest great harm should be 
done to what they regarded as the highest interest of millions. 
Since the subject is a fiercely contested question, very clear and 
thorough w'ork would have to be done, to accomplish what the 
lecturer promised. Since evolution is advanced by its advocates, 
and was presented by Huxley, as the opponent of the theory of 
the creation of all existences and phenomena by intelligence, and 
was presented by Huxley as the solution given by science to the 
problem of being, the attempt was to demonstrate that the theory 
of evolution is the true and scientific explanation of the existence 
of all existences and phenomena. 

Huxley should : I. Have stated in all its magnitude, in clear 
outline at least, the demands of the problem, for which he offered 
evolution as a solution. As it is very earnestly disputed that it 
is a solution of many, and the most important elements of the 
problem, he should have stated the problem carefully, and been 
especially particular in placing the disputed elements fully before 
the audience, so that when heovas done they could compare the 
solution with the problem, and especially these disputed elements, 
and decide whether the theory of evolution Avas a solution of the 
problem. 11. If he undertook, as lie claimed he did, to state 
all the conflicting solutions of the problem, he should have stated 



424 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

all of them, and fully and fairly, placing all before the audience 
in all their essential features, and in their full strength. III. If 
he undertook to disprove all of them except evolution, as he 
claimed he did, he should have clearly and fairly shown that each 
of them, fairly stated in all essential features and full strength, 
failed to meet the demands of the problem. IV. To demonstrate 
that his solution, evolution, did meet the demands of the prob- 
lem, he should : 1st. State accurately and carefully the facts on 
which he based his theory, establishing that each and every one 
was a fact clearly proved. 2d. Show that his theory was an un- 
doubted deduction from the facts, and clearly established by 
them. 3d. Show that his theory, thus established, solved tiio 
problem — met all the demands of the problem. He should be 
especially careful to avoid two errors. First, he must not incor- 
porate into his theory an idea that was not clearly established by 
the facts he cited to demonstrate it, thus extending it beyond what 
was established, or was a legitimate deduction from the facts. 
Second, extending his theory over what it did not cover, or, in 
other words, claiming that it solved things of which it was no 
solution. He should be careful to confine his theory in his state- 
ment to what was established by his facts, and in application to 
just what it met and explained. V. He should have passed the 
problem in detail before his hearers, and applied his theory to 
each element in detail, and proved by practical demonstration 
and illustration that it was a solution of each element of the 
problem. And in regard to the elements concerning it, which de- 
nied that evolution was or could be a solution, he should have 
examined them carefully, and have shown that such objections 
to his theory were not valid. Either that it did meet and ex- 
plain these elements of the problem, or that no such issue was to 
be met, and there w^as no such element to be explained. The 
audience and the world had a right to expect all this from one of 
the reputation of the lecturer, and who had studied the subject 
more, and was regarded as one who understood it better than any 
person living, with perhaps one or two exceptions. His promise 
to place the evolution hypothesis on the same basis of demonstra- 
tion, on the same basis as the Copernican system, involved such a 
work. Above all, the transcendent importance of the theme he 
discussed, in its direct or indirect bearings on science, morals, 
religion and thought, demanded all this Avork at his hands. 

We propose now to examine his work and test it, and see how 
near his demonstration came to meeting these demands that his 
]>romises authorized the Avorld to expect from him and exact at 
liis hands. Did he state the problem fully and clearly, especially 
'he disputed points, the ones at issue? I think no one dare say 
Viiat he did. The issue or problem, the origin of all existences 
{ind phenomena, involved, at the lea^t, the following elements: 
1. What was the origin of matter and force? Are they self- 
existent? If that is claimed, it should be shown how they can 
be, and espccrially that they actually are so. If not self-exi.stent, 
then it should be .stated clearly what is their origin. xVs this is 
the question of questions, the fundamental question, it should be- 



APrENDix. 425 

clearly met. 2. What w<as the origin of the essential properties 
of matter and force ? Are they self-existent ? Or did they pro- 
ceed from some antecedent source? If so, what? 3. The co- 
ordination, adjustment and adaptation of these essential proper- 
ties into an order, system and method, with law and plan ; Avhence 
came it? 4. The elementary substajices of matter and tl.eir pe- 
culiar characteristics, whence came they ? 5. The co-ordination 
and adjustment of these elementary substances into an order and 
system with law and plan, whence came it? 6. The planetary 
and stellar worlds and systems, their forms, orbits, motions, dis- 
tances, masses and relations, whence came they? 7. The co- 
ordination of all these things mentioned in the previous six 
queries, in exact mathematical law and proportion, in numerical 
expression and magnitude, and geometrical form in a system, 
realizing the most exalted and abstract ideas of reason, in mathe- 
matics, harmony and law, whence came all this ? 8. Chemical 
action and affinity, and its almost infinite and infinitely varied 
results, and its wonderful law, whence came they? 9. The co- 
ordination and adjustment of all these in a perfect system with 
perfect plan and law, and the co-ordination of all nature to 
chemical action, affinity and its results and law, whence came 
they? 

10. Crystallization, the result of chemical action, with its laws 
of number and proportion, and of geometrical form and angles, 
all realizing the most exalted ideas of reason in proportion, order 
and harmony, whence came they? 11. The co-ordination of all 
these inorganic processes and results to each other and the whole 
system, whence came it? 12. Whence came that wonderful phe- 
nomenon we call vegetable life or vital force ? 18. Whence came 
the vegetable cell, germ, seed and plant, the vegetable organisms 
built up by this life, and in which it is manifested ? 14. Whence 
came animal life, so wonderful in sensation, instinct, understand- 
ing, power of voluntary motion and locomotion? 15. Whence 
came the animal cell, germ or organisms built up by this animal 
life, and in which it is manifested? 16. Whence came sensation, 
instinct and understanding, so varied and wonderful in different 
animals? 17. Whence came all the orders, families, species and 
varieties of vegetable and animal life and organisms? 18. 
Whence came man's organism and brain, so wonderful and so 
different from all animals ? 19. Whence came reason, moral and 
religious nature and character, and their results ? 20. Whence 
came the realization of the most exalted ideas of reason in co- 
ordination, adjustment, arrangement and adaptation into order, 
method and system, with law, plan, design and purpose, with 
prevision, provision, alternativity, and choice, beauty, harmony 
and utility in the absolutely primordial constitution or absolute 
beginning of things, in the course of evolution, in each and every 
step in it, and in the present order of things, in each existence 
and phenomenon, and in the universe? Whence came all this? 
These are the disputed elements of the problem he proposed to 
solve, and his solution had special reference to these. 

If it be said that his undertaking did not require all this, and 
30 



12C TFII<: PROBLEM OP PROBLKMS. 

that his promise did not require him to state all these issues as 
elements of the problem, we reply that the theory of creation 
claims to account for the existence of all being and phenomena, 
and to explain every one of the above issues. So Huxley hin^.- 
self said in his lecture. He offered evolution as the scientific 
substitute for the theory of creation, hence he offered it as a 
solution of every one of the above-mentioned issues. Evolution- 
ists offer evolution as the scientific solution of all these issues, 
and as the scientific substitute for the theory of creation, and 
invariably nse it as such. Huxley assumed that it is a solution 
for all these elements in the practical use he made of it, in the 
scope he gave to it, and in his offering it as the solution given by 
science instead of the theory of creation. Such, then, were the 
elements of the problem he proposed to solve, and demonstrate 
that evolution is the true and scientific solution. As all of 
these issues are subjects of earnest controversy between the 
conflicting theories of creation and evolution, Huxley should 
have stated them all clearly and fully, and frankly avowed his 
task to be to explain them by evolution. Huxley made but a 
partial statement of the problem in the beginning, stating but a 
few issues, and these as weakly as possible, as though he wanted 
to have as little to meet as possible ; and in his demonstration of 
evolution, and his application of it, he reasoned as though but 
one element were involved in the entire problem, and this, the 
origin of species, is the least important and least difficult of any. 
A person reading his demonstration in the second or third lec- 
tures would suppose that his work was simply to show how 
variations and species were produced. He would not dream 
that he was trying to give a substitute for the whole theory of 
creation. 

Did he state all the conflicting theories as he claimed he did, 
and state them correctly, fairly, and in their full strength ? With- 
out inquiring whetlier the interpretation he gave of Milton's 
poetic description of creation be correct, or discussing now whether 
it be, as he by cowardly covert indirection sneeringly insinuated 
the theory of creation ])re.sented in Genesis, we most emphatically 
deny that he stated the theory of creation as it is held by its 
advocates, with scarcely an exception. In addition to what he 
presented, there are the following theories: 1st. God created 
matter and force and implanted in them, and stamped upon them, 
invariable necessary laws, in accordance with which they have 
evolved all things, and that he acts only through these laws, and 
in them only, in their first constitution. 2d. He created matter 
and force and implanted in them, and stamped upon them, invari- 
able and necessary laws, in accordance with which they have 
evolved all existences and phenomena; but God is ever present 
in these laws, and through them his power evolves all things in 
accordance Avith his will. Persons 'who are full and complete be- 
lievers of the evolution of all things out of matter and force, hold 
one or the other of these theories, 3d. The author holds the fol- 
lowing theory: God created matter and force and implanted in 
them, and stamped on them, principles and laws in accordance 



APPENDIX. 427 

with absolute reason, and in accordance ■svith these laws of 
reason they operate and have evolved portions of the phenomena 
that have come into bein<!; since creation, but such evolution has 
been within certain limits. There has been development from 
the first creation, but it has been development that was in its 
most important features development by creation, and by succes- 
sive steps. There has been evolution of the plan of Infinite Wis- 
dom and Power, and evolution of existences within certain limits, 
but God has created directly each new and higher step of existence 
when they appeared ; such steps as are indicated by the twenty 
elements of the problem as enumerated. 

There was evolution of the Divine plan in the course of develop- 
ment, but by successive steps, by direct creation, with evolution 
by variation between these steps. This was not without cause, 
but had Absolute Reason as its cause. It was not without law, 
but was in accordance with law, the highest law, law of Infinite 
Intelligence, and is the only theory that has any law in its real 
meaning, and the only theory that has a cause, in the true sense 
of the word cause. The Creator brought into being matter and 
force. He gave to them perfect laws. He created the essential 
properties of matter and force. He created the elementary sub- 
stances and their characteristics. He created chemical affinity 
and its action and crystallization, and he created life, both vege- 
table and animal. He created each species, by creating perfect 
the first of each species at the beginning of the species. Then all 
succeeding individuals are produced by the action of the laws he 
established, and variations within definite limits. God is potenti- 
ally and actively present in government and providence in the 
ongoings of nature. Government, providence, prayer, inspiration, 
revelation, atonement, mediation, and forgiveness are not capri- 
cious or without law, or in violation of law, but are a necessary 
part of the highest law, law of rational beings, and are a part of 
its perfection, and necessary to its perfection. There has been 
rational, moral, and religious development in human history, but 
religion, morality, and reason, and those catholic ideas of reason, 
religion and morality, mentioned above, are the factors of such 
evolution. They must be the factors in an evolution of intelli- 
gences, a development of the reason and moral nature of intelli- 
gences, controlled by an overruling intelligence. I believe this 
accords with the teachings of the Scriptures, and is the teaching 
of the Scriptures. I believe this theory of creation by successive 
steps, of evolution by creative steps, is the theory of the first 
chapter of Genesis. I refer the reader to the explantion of that 
chapter given in a former article. 

Then we impeach Huxley's statement of conflicting theories as 
imperfect, omitting several, and as unfair and incorrect. We object 
to the unfairness and untruth there is in his representing the the- 
ory of creation as being without law, or in violation of law. It is 
in accordance with law, the highest law, law of Infinite Wisdom. 
The theory of evolution is without law unless it be the law of 
blind, fatal necessity, which would admit of no change, and invari- 
ably produce the same results. In that case there could be no 



428 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

evolution. As Huxley claims an evolution out of blind, irrational 
nuitter and force, and by means of them, of all existences and 
phenomena, he must have change, and the only change and opera- 
tion there can be in a system based on blind, irrational matter and 
force, and by means of them, is the chance fortuity of the blind, 
{limless ongoings and happenings of blind, irrational matter and 
force. Law, in a system of evolution of blind, irrational matter 
and force, and by means of them, is an absurdity, is impossible and 
unthinkable. The theory of creation and control by Intelligence 
is the only theory in which there can be law in any sense, and is 
the only theory that is in accordance wiih law, has law. We object 
also to the assumption, so unfair and untruthful, that the theory 
of creation brings existences and phenomena into being without 
a cause, or in violation of the law of causation. This is implied 
when he covertly insinuates that it implies that there was a time 
wlien events did not follow a fixed order, and when the relations 
of cause and effect were not fixed and definite, and did not con- 
trol as they do now. The theory of creation is based on the truth 
til at all existences and phenomena had a cause, an adequate cause, 
an intelligent cause, and that events do certainly follow a fixed 
order, an order established by Infinite Wisdom. The issue between 
the theories of creation and evolution is not whether events follow 
a fixed order, or whether they are controlled by law, and have 
been produced in accordance with law, but concerning what kind of 
law. Evolution says a law of fatal necessity, of blind, irrational 
matter and force, in which case there could be no variation, no 
change, no evolution. Or a law of chance fortuity of the aimless 
ongoings or happenings of blind, irrational matter and force, which 
is an absurdity, for in such a case there is no law. We hand back 
to him, where it belongs, the charge of having a theory without 
law. The issue between the creation and evolution theories is not 
whether existences and phenomena have a cause, but concerning 
what kind of cause. Evolution says matter and force are the 
cause, when the inertia and passivity of matter and the utter lack 
of self-direction and spontaneity there is in force, render the idea 
of their being causes in any sense, or being more than the instru- 
ment of causes, an absurdity. Then we hand back to him the 
charge of having a theory that brings things into being without 
a cause. It belongs to his theory. Theory of creation has a cause, 
the only cause there is in the universe, mind, and an adequate 
cause, an intelligent cause. It has law, the law of Infinite Wisdom, 
and is the only theory that can have law. We reject, also, as un- 
truthful and an insult the cowardly insinuation that theory of 
creation is to be placed on a level with the idea that perhaps there 
was a time when two and two did not make four. 

We repel, also, the covert and cowardly insinuation against the 
honesty and intelligence of believers of the Scriptures, in the re- 
mark, Ihat scientists*can only stand by and admire the flexibility 
of tiie Hebrew text, that admits of so many and such conflicting 
interpretations. It ia a fact that language is flexible, and admits 
of many interpretations often. He professed to be very honest 
and candid in his lectures. He was excessively cautious and 



APPENDIX. 429 

careful to be as clear and precise as he could be in his statements. 
And yet already it is a fact that many and conflicting interpre- 
tations have been given to his language, so deliberately matured, 
so thoughtfully worded and expressed, to make it so clear there 
could be no mistake, and that all must understand it correctly. 
Were there arguments in sneers, we might rehearse the one hun- 
dred and fifty exploded, conflicting, and contradictory hypothe- 
ses in geology, that have been abandoned in as many years, and 
as many in physiology, also in chemistry, and so on with the 
entire round of sciences, that are practical knowledge, and so 
clear and precise, definite and harmonious, and marvel at the 
wonderful flexibility of the inflexible record of nature, that is so 
definite, clear and uniform. Says a late writer, " We have hardly 
mastered a theory until we are called on to abandon it for a new 
one." We might rehearse the multitude of conflicting theories 
and interpretations of nature, that are now fierce matters of dis- 
pute between these scientists that have every thing so clear and 
definite. We might rehearse many theories that have been ad- 
vocated at different times by the same person, and even by the 
lecturer himself, that are conflicting and contradictory, and 
marvel at the flexibility of this inflexible volume of science that 
admits of so many and so conflicting interpretations by the same 
person. But such sneers and insinuations are not argument, 
nor are such covert misrepresentations of an opponent's position 
as abound in this lecture. Huxley injured himself and his 
cause. He presented as Milton's theory, what he intended his 
liearers to understand to be the teaching of the Scriptures. He 
covertly insinuated that he dare not say that it was the teaching 
of Genesis, on account of the dishonesty and sophistry of believers 
of the Bible, who interpreted Genesis in any way so as to save 
the inspiration and truthfulness of the record, regardless of what 
must be its real meaning. It would have been honest and manly 
to have said what he meant, as an honest, truthful, courageous 
man. Then his hearers could have respected him, and not have 
felt a feeling of contempt for the cowardice that said in covert 
insinuations and sneers what it did not dare to say openly. It 
was the cowardice and treachery of one who stabs under a flag 
of truce, and while rehearsing a treaty of peace, and uses the staff 
on which the flag of peace is fastened as the weapon to pierce 
the one he is deceiving by means of it. 

Then the unfair and dishonest representations of the lecture in 
regard to what the theory of creation is, in regard to its teaching 
that things once did not follow a fixed order, its being a theory 
without law or in violation of law, that it taught that events 
happened without a cause, that there was a time when the rela- 
tions of cause and effect were not fixed and definite as now, and 
that the theory was on a level with the assumption that two and 
two might once have been something else than four, have injured 
his attempt and himself, and must forever after cause all fair- 
minded men to have a far different opinion of him from what his 
pretensions claimed for him. His attacks on the theory of crea- 
tion presented in Genesis were but three : 1st. It represented 



430 THE PEOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

existences as coming into being instantaneously and by creation. 
Science teaclies they are evolved gradually. 2d, It represents tlie 
time as but six days of twenty-four hours, if the account be 
honestly interpreted. 3d. It does not pi'esent the order of crea- 
tion that science teaches. In regard to the first, we reply that 
the account does not conflict with the idea of creation by evo- 
lution within certain limits. It represents new types of existences 
as coming into being instantaneously, and by creation, and in 
their highest perfection at first. So does geology as far as its 
records go. Geologists meet with each new type suddenly, in its 
highest perfection, without a trace of connecting links between 
it and lower types. In regard to the second, we reply that in 
the Hebrew Scriptures the word yam, here translated day, has 
these meanings : 1st. The time from sunrise to sunset. 2d. 
Twenty-four hours. 3d. Past or future time without limit. 4th. 
A fnture prophetic period of indefinite length. 5th. An epoch 
or period of time in history. 6th. A season of the year. 7th. 
A period of life, as old age. 8th. A specified time of indefinite 
length. Scores of instances of many of them, and many of all 
of them, could be given. It has such meanings in the English, 
and all languages. Then language is flexible and susceptible of 
diflerent interpretations. In the second verse of the first chapter 
day means an indefinite period. In the fourth verse of the sec- 
ond chapter, where its use settles its meaning in this account, it 
means an indefinite period, the time of God's ceasing from crea- 
tion in which we are living, and which is not ended yet. This 
determines the duration of the other days. Then we object to 
the unfairness that forces on to the word an absurd meaning, 
which the context does not require, but forbids, evidently to 
destroy it. It does not allow the fair principle to be applied, 
that the writer is presumed to speak sense, and such meaning 
must be given to his words as will make sense, unless the context 
forbids. There is no necessity for giving such meaning in this 
account. Its being prophetic vision forbids such a meaning, for 
day does not have such meaning in vision and prophecy. The 
context gives the meaning, period — and compels such an meaning, 
and forbids the idea of twenty-four hours. 

In regard to the charge that the order contradicts that of 
science, we can not enter into an elaborate detail, but will repeat 
the remark made elsewhere, that the account is a bold poetic de- 
scription, in general outline, of the leading events of creation, as 
they would appear to an eye-witness in prophetic vision, written 
for a people destitute of all science of modern times supposed to 
contradict it. Hence it is unjust to insist on examining this ac- 
count as a literal, scientific account^ in which scientific precision 
in order and detail are attempted. General agreement is all that 
is to be expected. There is this agreement, if we can accept the 
testimony of such geologists as Miller, Hitchcock, Silliman, 
Guyot, Tenny, Dana and Dawson. Several of these are the 
masters in geology. Several of them are the greatest living geolo- 
gists, and the masters of Huxley in geology. Dawson, in his 
Archaia, very fully elaborates and establishes this substantial 



APPENDIX. 431 

agreement. So does Dana. These are the greatest of living 
geologists. Dana thus interprets the record in Genesis : I. In- 
organic Era. 1st day ; creation of cosmical light. 2d day ; the 
earth divided from the fluid around it, or individualized. 3d day ; 
first, outlining of land and water; second, creation of vegetation. 
II. Organic Era. 4th day; light from the sun becomes prevalent 
on the earth. 6th day; creation of lower orders of animals. 
6th day; first, creation of mammals; second, creation of man. 
These masters in geology, and of Huxley himself, declare that tl.iri 
accords with the teachings of science, and that no uninspired ma.n 
could at that day have fabricated such an account, so simple, sub- 
lime and grandly correct, and accordant with the teachings (;f 
science. I leave these masters in geology to set to one side the 
utterances of this refractory and presumptuous pupil. 

In the second lecture we have an evident cautious preparation 
of the hearer for the weakness of the demonstration. He 
tries to raise expectations and surmises, and to prepare the 
mind to accept them as demonstration. As lago expresses 
it, "He is preparing the mind to accept as demonstration 
what demonstrates but thinly." His course is like that of a troop 
of elephants in crossing a bridge. They drive the smallest ones over 
first to see how long the bridge will bear. In this lecture he 
seems to make concessions that he utterly disregards in a few 
moments, and during the rest of his argument. He concedes that as 
far as our knowledge goes, species have been persistent, and have 
never changed into other species. Then in the face of this he 
coolly bases his entire argument on the broad assumption that 
they have not been persistent in any sense, but all have changed, 
and are the result of such change, and without one particle of 
proof. He admits, Avith seeming candor, the utter lack of proof in 
the geological records, and especially in regard to transmutational 
links, or transitional forms, or links in the course of transmuta- 
tion. He then boldly uses this very record, that he has admitted 
has no proof, as his sole proof, and bases his arguments on the very 
links that he admits are utterly wanting. He bases his demon- 
tration on these defects, in the record, as though he had the miss- 
ing links, and knew just wliat they were. He assumes we will 
find these missing links, and that they will infallibly be of the 
precise character needed to establish his theory. The theologian 
can only stand by and admire, he knows not which most, the 
marvelous coolness or amazing audacity that could pursue such 
a course when discussing a topic so earnestly contested. He an- 
nounced that he would place the evolution hypothesis on as posi- 
tive a basis as the Copernican system of the universe. This sys- 
tem is based on well established scientific truths and observa- 
tions, and confirmed by the test of long experience and careful 
study. 

He finally announced his method of proof thus : "When we 
have all the evidence concerning the subject we can hope to have, 
and it is in favor of the theory, we should accept it.." Does he 
mean to assert or have us understand that is all the testimony we 
have for the Copernican system ? He says nothing about how 



432 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

much evidence we can hope to have, whether it be much or next 
to none at all. Nor in what sense it must be in favor of the 
theory, whether it must clearly teach it, or merely hint it as a 
surmise or possibility. Suppose we have next to no evidence at 
all, shall we except it ? Suppose the evidence merely raises a sur- 
mise of the possibility of such a theory, are we to accept such 
surmise? Suppose there are other the )ries as plausible, or nearly 
so, what then? He says nothing concerning objections tiiat 
stand in the way of the theory, and what influence they should 
have, and wisely, for had he entered that field the objections to 
evolution would have buried the surmises in its favor, raised by 
his evidence, deeper than Jove buried the Titans. He relies on 
the law of circumstantial evidence to establish his theory. The 
rules for testing circumstantial evidence are these : I. There 
must be sufficient number of facts favoring the theory to raise a 
reasonable, a strong presumption in its favor, and they must point 
very strongly in that direction, before a man is warranted in ad- 
vancing and advocating the theory, or in demanding that others 
accept and act on it. In this Huxley's evidence is very defi- 
cient. There is not enough to raise a strong presumption, and 
they do not point in the direction of his theory v/itli sufficient 
strength to give him any warrant in demanding that we accept 
his theory, and change our science, morality and religion, and 
base them on it. II. There must be no undeniable facts that 
raise insuperable objections, or even strong presumptions, against 
the theory. In this his evidence is utterly destroyed, for there 
are multitudes of facts that place insuperable objections in the 
way of the acceptance of his theory. They flatly contradict it. 
HI. There must not be, as a necessary or logical part of the theory, 
when logically developed and fairly carried out, tlie absurd or false, 
either as a part of the theory, or as a -necessary deduction from it. 
In this Huxley's theory is fatally defective. When stated fully and 
consistently, also when logically carried out, it necessarily involves 
the absurd, the contradictory and the false. IV. The conclusion 
must be based on positive testimony and not on supposition. Sup- 
l)osition must not be used as fact, or as a basis for the conclusion, 
for such supposition may be false. V. The conclusion or theory 
to be established must be the only possible one that will explain 
or account for the facts. If there be one or more other theories 
tliat will account for the facts, the theory is worthless, for the 
facts, admit of other explanations that may be true. VI. The 
theory must not be elaborated or expended in its enunciation be- 
yond what is a fair and necessary deduction from the facts on 
which it is based. VII. The theory must not be expanded in ap- 
plication beyond what it logically covers, or beyond that to which 
it is logically and properly applicable. If we admit all that 
Huxley presents in his lectures to be facts, he makes no attempt 
to show that evolution alone will account for them. Nor does he 
make any attempt to show that other theories will not account 
for them. Nay, more, he scarcely makes an attempt to show that 
evolution will account for them, and this slight assumption is a 
failure. 



APPENDIX. 433 

He makes no attempt to show that the creation theory will 
not account for the facts he cites. He merely claims, or as- 
sumes the possibility that evolution produced them. We claim 
that the creation theory will account for them, that it will ac- 
count for them far better than he claims the evolution theory 
can. We claim that the creation theory alone will account for 
them. We have urged over one hundred utterly insuperable 
objections to the evolution theory. We have reasons almost in- 
numerable and unanswerable, that the creation theory is the 
'only possible theory, the true theory, and the only theory reason 
will accept. Reast>n alone can settle this question of the origin 
and cause of existences and phenomena. Physical science can 
only place before us the phenomena and their characteristics, 
but it is utterly impotent to settle the question of their efficient 
and final causes, or what produced them, and for what end 
were they produced. Huxley's failure and his course proves 
this. He cited certain facts, as he claimed. But he did not 
present a single scientific fact, or particle of testimony, as to 
what produced the facts. He, as an act of reason, or metaphys- 
ics, inferred that they were evolved. This is a practical admis- 
sion that science can not settle this question and that reason 
alone can do it. Keason declares that intelligence alone could, 
and did produce the phenomena, and for certain ends. Then 
his theory is based on assumptions, and assumptions known to 
be untrue. He assumed, without one particle of proof, and in 
the face of all proof, and clear proof, that there were no spe- 
cific differences between the four animals he used in his lec- 
ture. He based his argument on such assumption, and, if he 
does not assume it, his argument is worthless. There are differ- 
ences of species wider than there are between the horse, the zebra, 
the ass, and the gnu. We know that these will not hybridize 
and perpetuate their kind. We know that one was not evolved 
out of the other. That there are no transitional or transmuta- 
tional links or forms between them. There are far wider differ- 
ences, and specific differences, between the animals he parades 
before us. Hence, his demonstration is absolutely worthless, 
for it is based on an assumption known to be palpably and 
utterly untrue. He exaggerates resemblances on which he bases 
his theory, and he overlooks or ignores differences that com- 
pletely overturn it. He overlooks the palpable fact that if re- 
semblances suggest similarity of origin or kindred of species, so 
do differences suggest difference of origin and difference of 
species. If more and stronger differences exist than resemb- 
lances, they set to one side all deductions based on resemblances. 
Also, if one impossible difference exists, it sets to one side all 
resemblances, no matter how many. His reasoning ignores the 
law of species entirely. Species are defined in four ways: 1st. 
A species lies within the limits of variation. 2d. Progeny is 
like the parent. 3d. Species lies within the limit of hybridiza- 
tion. 4th. Species never passes the chasm of sterility. He ig- 
nores these laws in his four animals. He overlooks the fact 
that the same reasoning that proves sameness in species in these 



434 TIIR PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

cases, will, with far greater force, prove the horse, zebra, ass 
and gnu to be one species, when we know they are not. 

Again, his reasoning ignores the real and vital difference of 
species. Similarity of structure does not prove sameness of 
species, nor is structure the highest standard in determining 
species. The real distinction lies outside of observation. It is 
in the life-power; that produces progeny like the parent, although 
the germs of animals be in structure precisely alike. And the 
sume life-power or principle refuses to hybridize in different 
s])ecies, although the germs brought in contact are precisely 
it like in structure. Here is where the real difference lies; hence 
liis similarity of structure in these four animals is utterly worth- 
less. This real difference that lies outside of observation until 
we see it in its results in the two cases mentioned, is ignored 
in his illustration. Again, his reasoning is faulty in this. Pur- 
sue the same course by fours up and down the scale of existence, 
in all orders and species, and it would obliterate all species, all 
families, all orders. The operation of such a process as he sets 
forth, would destroy specific differences and all species. It 
would also destroy all old species, and leave only an infinite 
variety of new animals, not specifically different from each other. 
Then, since he found absolutely no transitional forms, or evi- 
dences of transmutations between these species, he has not 
affected the chasm between species one particle. Our Quintius 
Curtius has cast himself into the yawning chasm, and it still 
stands as it did before his rash leap. He does not present one 
particle of evidence of the evolution of one of these animals 
out of the other. He does not adduce one particle of evidence 
of transmutation of (me into the other. He does not find one 
transitional form or connecting link. He finds a ladder, with 
four steps, wnde apart, when he should have found an inclined 
plane. He finds four animals specifically different on the four 
steps. He does not find one particle of evidence that one of 
these ever passed up onto the next step, or was transformed 
into the animal on the next step. 

He does not show that conditions produced or evolved one of 
these animals, or that from which 'they descended, or produced 
one of their characteristics. He makes no attempt to show that 
struggle for life, and the conditions, the factors of evolution ac- 
complished one of these results, or changed either animal or its 
characteristics into that above it. Even if he had established 
that these changes Avere produced, creation might have pro- 
duced them, and he did not show that evolution did or could. 
Creation must have produced the animal varied, and the con- 
ditions that varied it and controlled them. Then this vital part 
of his demonstration is an utter failure. Then, it may be a small 
matter, but it is worth noticing. His eocene orohippos figures 
in his diagrams as large as the other three animals, wdth which 
it is connected in the illustration. It was no larger than a fox. 
How would it have looked to have placed just before an animal 
as large as a horse, one as large as a fox, and then tell the audi- 
ence one was the direct descendant of the other? The absurdity 



APPENDIX. 435 

of such a conceit is quietly ignored and concealed, by making 
the diagrams of the same size. If a priest hp-d done this he 
could have Avondered at the marvelous flexibility of diagrams! 
Then his theory is vastly greater than his facts establish in regard 
to these four animals, if we concede all he can claim. He claims 
that one Avas evolved out of the other in an ascending scale. Tlie 
facts give it no support, but positiA^ely forbid such a supposition. 
But now comes the most astounding pjirt of this demonstration. 
Admitting all he claimed in the case of these four animals, he 
only proved evolution the case of fonr species. He then expands, 
without Avarrant, this meager conclusion over all the species of 
that family. Then over all species, groups and orders, thus de- 
ducing from Avhat establisb.ed only the evolution of four species 
out of each other, the evolution of the hundreds of thousands 
of species of geologic and historic time. And next comes the 
most marvelous part. Even Avhen he has thus, Avithout Avarrant, 
and in violation of all reason, expanded his theory hundreds of 
thousands of times beyond' its proper limit, he has but covered 
one issue in tAventy, and that the least difficult. But he pro- 
ceeds next to expand it over the entire tAventy issues in the 
problem, when nearly every one of them, singly, is inconceivably 
more difficult than the one element he could only cover by ex- 
panding hundreds of thousands of times his theory, that AA'as not 
sustained in a single feature by his fticts, but contradicted in toto 
by them. Truly one £an only stand by and admire the absolutely 
infinite flexibility of a theory that can be stretched from so 
small a compass, to cover an infinite number and magnitude of 
so conflicting elements. And this is accounting for all existences 
and phenomena, and the twenty elements of the problem of ex- 
istence and phenomena, as clearly as the Copernican system 
accounts for the facts of the position and motions of the plan- 
etary and stellar systems! And this is demonstrating the 
evolution hypothesis as clearly as the Copernican system is 
established ! 

Then this vaunted demonstration only places before us the fact 
that four animals of different species of the same order are in 
the position of four steps of a pyramid. There is no more proof 
of evolution than there would be to place before us the flail, the 
threshing drag, the threshing machine of fifty years ago, and 
one of our present harvesters and threshers. There is absolutely 
no more proof that one Avas evolved out of the other, and, aboA-'c 
all, that it was evolved by unintelligent conditions, instead of 
intelligence. There is the same necessity for intelligence in one 
case that there is in the other, and infinitely higher need of in- 
telligence, for an infinitely higher result of intelligence is placed 
before us. He started out to find an inclined plane, and found 
a pyramid, up the steps of which the animals could not leap, 
nor could conditions, unintelligent conditions, lift them. But 
suppose he had found an inclined plane, instead of the steps of a 
pyramid, there Avould be.no proof that each portion of the plane 
was evolved out of that beloAv it. If, in our illustration of the 
four machines, aa'c Avere to place a sufficient number of machines 



436 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

between the four, to reduce the differences to an infinitesimal 
quantity, so that no one could point out any distinction between 
any two consecutive machines, would it prove that one was evolved 
out of the other, and especially by unintelligent conditions ? 
And if he had established that each part of the plane was 
evolved out of that below it, it does not do away with intelli- 
gence, or the necessity for intelligence to originate, plan and 
control the evolution. Huxley found only the ascending steps 
of a pyramid, and nature does not leap. This is practically ad- 
mitted, and he assumes that there must have been intermediate 
forms that reduced the ascent into an inclined plane. Of this 
he offered no proof, and all the facts contradict it, but had he 
found such forms, we still object, nature does not slide any more 
than it leaps. And if it did, whence came the materials of the 
pyramid or plane, and the power in nature that slides or leaps, 
and what co-ordinated these materials and this power in this won- 
derful pyramid or plane? Does it remove the necessity for 
intelligence, to constitute, control and sustain nature in its 
operations, to show what wonderful things nature can do, and to 
increase their wonder? 

The writer has seen envelopes made by hand. A score of pro- 
cesses were gone through by a score of persons. No one would 
deny that intelligence produced each process and its results. 
Lately he saw a machine perform the work. A man laid on a 
table a pile of sheets. The machine picked them off, one by one, 
and deposited envelopes in piles of twenty-five each, finished en- 
velopes. All that the operator did was to lay down the sheets 
and pick up the packages. Did that prove that intelligence had 
nothing to do with the operation, and that blind, irrational mat- 
ter and force evolved the machine, and blind, irrational matter 
and force was all that had any thing to do with its operation ? 
On the contrary, was it not the highest evidence that intelligence 
must have devised the machine, and must control its operations ? 
Were not the wonderful results produced by the machine, so much 
the greater evidence that intelligence must have invented and 
constructed it ? And does not increase of the wonderful nature 
of the results, increase the evidence that intelligence must have 
invented and constructed it, in the same ratio? Then let Huxley 
establish that nature can do an infinite fold more than we now 
believe, and he has only increased the necessity for intelligence 
to constitute nature, and the evidence that intelligence consti- 
tuted nature. These are two minor thoughts that deserve notice. 
In Huxley's cases of evolution, there was a retrogression in pass- 
ing from the animal with several toes to the animal with all 
united. It was an evolving of the lower from the higher. When 
he announced his theory in his first lecture, he confessed that it 
absolutely required long time. When reminded in a note that 
astronomy and other sciences absolutely refused to grant so long 
a time, he, in his last lecture, attempted to waive this to one side by 
bluster. He must either disprove the limit set by these sciences, 
or give up evolution, or bring evolution within greatly shorter 
time, which utterly destroys it. 



APPENDIX. 437 

Let us now take the two conflicting theories, evolution out of 
blind, irrational matter and force, and by blind, irrational matter 
and force, and the theory of the creation of all existences and 
phenomena by Absolute Reason, in accordance with perfect law 
of perfect reason, and test them by applying them to the solu- 
tion of the twenty elements of the problem, as we have enumer- 
ated them : I. How came matter and force into being. Evolu- 
tion either says they are self-existent, and contradicts reason, 
which says they can not be self-existent, but are subordinate 
agents, subordinate to mind, created articles, the creations of 
mind ; or it confesses that such an assumption is absurd by as- 
cribing them to an Unknown Power, and, in so doing, contra- 
dicts all inductive philosophy, which declares that from the 
nature and characteristics of what is produced by the Power, 
we can know the nature and characteristics of the Power. The 
theory of creation ascribes the origin of matter and force to rea- 
son, and thus accords with the principles of true inductive phi- 
losophy, which so declares, from the characteristics of matter 
and force. II. The essential properties of matter and force, 
whence came they ? III. Their co-ordination into a system in 
accordance with law, whence came it? IV. The elementary 
substances of matter, and their peculiar characteristics, whence 
came they ? V. Their co-ordination into a system in accordance 
with law, whence came it ? VI. Chemical affinity and actions, 
and their laws, so varied and wonderful, whence came they ? 
VII. Their co-ordination into a system in accordance with law, 
whence came it? VIII. Crystallization and its forms and laws, 
whence came they? IX. The co-ordination of all these inorganic 
processes, to nature, and to each other, in accordance with law, 
whence came it ? X. The planetary and stellar worlds and sys- 
tems, with their masses, forms, orbits, distances, velocities- and all 
relations, all co-ordinated in accordance with mathematical law, 
realizing the most exalted ideas of reason, whence came they ? 

Evolution says that blind, irrational matter and force evolved all 
this, when it is an involution, or a depositing in matter and force, 
what is not in them, and it violates all reason when it claims that 
blind matter and force realized these highest ideas and acts of reason. 
Or it ascribes them to what it calls an Unknown Power, when such 
results reveal the power, and make it known to be intelligence, as 
clearly as we know the sun to be the source of light. The theory of 
creation by intelligence ascribes all this to Absolute Reason, their 
only conceiveable ground, and in obedience to every principle of in- 
ductive reasoning, which declares that reason alone realized these 
exalted ideas of reason in accordance with which nature is consti- 
tuted. XI. Whence came that wonderful phenomenon we call 
vital force in the vegetable, or vegetable life ? If it be replied 
that it is the one physical force modified by the organism of the 
vegetable, we reply that it is now clearly established that the or- 
ganism is the result of the action of the vital force on matter. 
XII. Whence came the organism in which the vital force is dis- 
played — the cell, germ, seed or plant? It is now usual to deny 
that there is a chasm between inorganic matter and physical force, 



438 THE PROBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

and organic life and organisms. We give the following differences 
between inorganic matter, physical force, chemical action and 
crystallization on one side of the chasm, and vital force and vege- 
table organisms on the other. Vital force takes lifeless mineral 
ingredients and transforms them into living matter. Crystals, the 
highest inorganic products, are mere statical aggregates. Living 
organisms, vegetables, are dynamical products. Crystals can be 
decomposed and reunited any number of times. Decompose the 
vegetable organism; and it is destroyed for ever. Crystals emit 
heat in formation. Vegetable organisms absorb heat. Inorganic 
molecules have immobility. Vegetables have motion in a certain 
sense. 

Inorganic bodies are built up from without by accretion. Vege- 
table substances from within by assimilation. Inorganic bodies 
have not the power of reproduction or self-multiplication. Vege- 
table bodies have. Chemical action is destructive of vital force 
and vegetable organisms, wdien it conquers vital force. It tears 
down and destroys the organism when dominant. Vital force con- 
structs and builds up only by conquering and subordinating 
chemical action to its uses. These two forces are antagonistic. 
It is not a difference of degree, or of modification, but of nature. 
They can not be correlated.' There is a chasm here that can not 
be bridged over. Scientists admit that they do not know what 
force is, nor what life is especially. How can they declare that they 
can be correlated?" Evolution is dumb before this chasm. Hux- 
ley, when writing for the Encyclopcedia Britannica, as a scientific 
author for a work that would stand for ages, makes these state- 
ments : I. When the earth was in the early formative, condition 
revealed by science, life could not have been on it or in its ele- 
ments. II. There is a chasm between the not living and the liv- 
ing, that piust be bridged over, or evolution is impossible. III. We 
have no knowledge that it is bridged over or ever has been. IV. 
It is contrary to all experience, knowledge, and analogies of nature 
to suppose it ever has been bridged. V. Then spontaneous gene- 
ration of life must have occurred, or evolution is utterly impossible. 
VI. We have no experience or knowledge of any kind that spon- 
taneous generation ever did occur. VII. It is against all experi- 
ence and knowledge and analogies of nature to suppose that spon- 
taneous generation ever did occur. VIII. At present we are 
inexorably shut up to the conclusion that a supernatural act in- 
troduced life, that co-ordinates matter in the bioplast, the initial 
point and origin of all living organisms. In his demonstration, 
speaking as a spqcial pleader for evolution, he ignores these state- 
ments he made as an author in science, and assumes the very 
opposite. We will accept Huxley, the author of science, and 
reject Huxley when pettifogging as a special pleader for a hobby. 
Darwin practically confesses that there is this chasm between the 
not living and the living, and that he can not bridge it by com- 
mencing his theory with life inbreathed into primordial germs by 
a Creator. He can not assume life and germs as a starting point 
without basing them on the immovable rock of creation by intel- 
ligence. After he has used an intelligent Creator to launch his 



APPENDIX. 439 

ship he tries to discard it, but he can not. He needs it as a pro" 
peliing power, a moving energy every moment, and to push it off 
of shoals a score of times afterwards. Evolutionists like Darwin 
use the idea of a Creator as the clown claimed he used the ladder 
when he boasted that he could set it up in open air, climb to the 
top of it, and draw it up after him ! They use the idea of a Crea- 
tor to climb up on to a clear starting point, and then undertake to 
draw it up after them, and to deny using it, and ridicule all idea 
of its ever being used. They can not use the ladder and then 
cheat us otit of what they did, by calling it an Unknown Power, 
as does Huxley. It is stealing the ladder of creation, and trying 
to deceive its owners by calling it by a false name. The products 
of the power in which they try to hide prove it to be intelligence. 
Sometimes evolutionists try to deny that there is this chasm, or 
to bridge it by such nondescript substances as protaplasm or bathy- 
bius. . Huxley once claimed that there was on the deep-sea bed 
a substance that was the link between inorganic and organic mat- 
ter. He called it bathybius. Others called the nondescript par- 
ticles monera, Haeckel builds his evolution of life on it. So does 
Strauss. Late deep-sea- dredgings prove that it is clearly inorganic, 
and is no such substance as has been claimed. In a late number 
of the American Journal of Applied Science, and but a short time 
before this lecture, Huxley admitted that the existence of any 
such substance as he once claimed and called bathybius had been 
disproved. In this lecture he assumes it as a reality, and as the 
link between inorganic and organic matter. As a special pleader 
for a hobby, he assumes what he confessed as a scientist had no 
existence, and built his theory on it. The theory of creation ac- 
cepts the teachings of science, that life was created by intelligence 
and builds up the vegetable cell, germ, or seed, for it always taught 
that such was the case. 

XIH. Animal life, with locomotion, sensation, power of volun- 
tary action, instinct and understanding, whence came it? XI V^. 
The animal cell, or germ, or organism, whence came it? Evolu- 
tionists seem to be in a dilemma here, from which they can see 
no escape. Some times they call our attention to existences that 
they claim are links between animals and vegetables, and they 
seem ready to claim that animal life is evolved out of vegetable, 
or to confound the two at a certain connecting point. Then, 
aii;ain, our attention is called to such substance as bathj^bius 
that is claimed to be a connecting link between animal and inor- 
ganic matter. In both cases insuperable objections beset them. 
Microscopy has placed an impassable chasm between animal and 
vegetable life and organisms. They differ in cellular structure. 
What will nourish vegetable life and cell, will destroy animal 
life and cell. What will nourish animal life and cell, will de- 
stroy vegetable life and cell. The difference is one of nature, and 
is a vital one, and can not be bridged over. Vegetables have 
not sensation ; have not voluntary motion as animals have. Then 
there lies between vegetable and animal life these irreconcilable dif- 
ferences. Between inorganic matter and physical force, and animal 
life and org-anisms, there lies all the difference there is between 



440 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

vegetable life and organisms, and inorganic matter and physical 
force ; and in addition to that, all the difference there is between 
vegetable and animal life and organisms. As it is often assumed 
that there is no difference between inorganic and organic matter, 
at what is assumed as the connecting point, or between life and 
physical force, we will state other facts. The name now given to 
the most minute and lowest displays of life and its organism, the 
initial point and minutest unit of life is bioplasm. It consists of 
pabulum or nutrient matter, germinal matter, or matter in 
which form-vtive life is active and present, and this life and gei- 
minal matter are called the cell, and the life the bioplast ; and 
also formed matter, or matter that has been used by the bioplast 
and rejected. The center of the cell may be called the bioplast. 
It takes inorganic or formed matter, and changes it from not 
living to living matter, then rejects it as life passes out of it, and 
changes it into formed matter. Bioplasts always come from bio- 
plasts. They have the power of self-subdivision and self-movement. 
In self-subdivision each bioplast becomes a new bioplast. When 
these bioplasts are dead they can not be resurrected. Chemistry 
can not produce the work of the bioplast nor explain. It is antag- 
onistic to it and destroys it, unless the life in the bioplast con- 
quers and subordinates it. Bioplast comes from bioplast alone. 
This teaching the latest and best established results of scientific 
research show structure is the result of life-power, and difference 
of structure the product of difference in life-power. Huxley 
and all evolutionists claim that structure modifies force and pro- 
duces life, or Hie is the product of structure, and that difference 
of structure produces difference in life. In this, evolution posi- 
tively contradicts the fundamental principle of physiology, and 
as this is a fundamental idea, the basis idea of evolution, it is 
utterly false — must of necessity be so. Let any one carefully fol- 
low this thought, and it overturns all idea of evolution from mere 
matter and force. Then life was created and implanted in the 
matter of the bioplast, that thus became living matter, by the 
Creator, and not by chemical action or physical force. 

XV. Then whence came instinct, that often works out such 
wonderful results of reason? Also, understanding and volition to 
a certain extent in animals? Evolution can not answer, except to 
assume that it is physical force modified by the animal organism. 
This, reason utterly refuses to believe. Creation says it was im- 
planted by intelligence. XVI. Whence came the co-ordination 
of the vegetable organism and life with each other, and the co-or- 
dination of the animal organism and life with each other, and all 
four of these with each other, and to all the rest of nature, and 
nature with each and all of them? Evolution can only say it 
was evolved out of what did not contain it. In it are realized the 
most exalted ideas of reason, and creation says they were realized 
by reason. XVII. Then whence came the orders, groups, fami- 
lies, species and varieties of animals and vegetables? This is all 
evolution can make any show of accounting for, and here it 
utterly fails. Its theory of difference of life being caused by 
difference of structure, is contradicted by science, which teaches 



APPENDIX. 441 

that difference of structure is occasioned by difference of life. 
All bioplasm of animals is precisely alike at first. But as the liie 
begins to act in evolution, differences begin to appear between 
the four great orders of animals, in the first appearances of their 
germs. Then difference of species appear, then of varieties, thus 
proving that the real difference is in the life, and not in the struct- 
ure ; nor is it caused by the structure. Each bioplast, under the 
action of this life, builds up the animal from whence it was de- 
rived. There is co-ordination, prevision and provision back of 
the commencement of such process, which had their origin in in- 
telligence. This radical difference in the starting of develop- 
ment, and in the life back of it, forbids all idea of evolution. 
Evolution fails to account for this difference in life, the real 
difference, and for the co-ordination, prevision, law, and plan. 
Creation says all this had its origin in intelligence. 

XVIII. Whence came man's wonderful bodily organism, so 
wonderful and so different in essential particulars from those of 
animals; and his brain so much larger, and his specific character- 
istics so wonderful and so much above animals? An eminent 
physiologist enumerates four hundred of these specific differences. 
Here evolution utterly fails. There is a chasm between man and 
the most man like ape no evolution can bridge. There are not 
almost innumerable intermediate links, such as evolution, by 
slight differences, requires. There are absolutely no traces of any 
such. The oldest fossil remains of man prove him to be just what 
he is now. When we recollect the millions of remains of animals 
easily destroyed, that have been preserved through geologic catastro- 
phes, and that man is the latest and last of the varieties of animal 
life, and that he has not been subject to any such violent catas- 
trophes; and when we remember how easily and how certainly his 
powerful skeleton with its large bones must have been preserved, 
and find no traces of these intermediate links with equally pow- 
erful skeletons, and reflect what millions there must have been on 
the earth, we can only conclude that there are no such remains 
because there are no such links. 

XIX. Man's rational, moral and religious nature, and its cath- 
olic ideas and results, whence came they ? Here evolution stands 
dumb. Wallace and Huxley admit they can not explain this. 
If it be claimed that life can be correlated with physical force, 
and is physical force modified by the organization in which it is 
manifested, we appeal to these facts. Tyndall, Bastian and Spen- 
cer admit it can not be done. Then we ask, if physical force be 
correlated with life and thought, which are but physical force, 
what knows the correlation ? Does physical force know the cor- 
relation of itself with itself ? Life-force or power has conscious- 
ness, spontaneity, rationality, knowledge and volition. Physical 
force has not a suggestion of either. Life-power controls all 
forces. It is conscious that it is different from force. It is re- 
sponsible, and possesses moral character, and so do its acts. All 
this is lacking in physical force. In the displays of life-power 
the same act differs in character on account of motive. This is 
not true of force. Spirit, by intuition, knows and judges the 



442 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. . 

character of its own acts. We give no character to an act of 
spirit until we pass back to the motive that prompted it. Mind 
and force are separated by the characteristic of consciousness, 
and by every act of mind in consciousness. Life is not force, but 
an intelligent, conscious moral power. Life is independent of 
force in its origin. Never evolved by force or out of it. Force 
is mechanical. Life is a living power. Then all talk of correlat- 
ing life, especially rational life, with force, is as gross a contradic- 
tion of all true science and sense as can be conceived. 

XX. Then the immeasurable difference there is between man 
and animals in mind, or the displays of life-force, if we use the 
phraseology of the evolutionist. Let us array these carefully be- 
fore us, that we may clearly apprehend what evolution has to 
bridge over, to trace man's origin back to animals. 1st. Man has 
a conscience. Animals have none. 2d. Man has a moral nature. 
Animals have none in any sense. 3d. Man has a religious na- 
ture. Animals have none. 4th. Man has elaborate and exalted 
systems of religion and religious ideas. Animals have none. 5th. 
Man has the idea of future life and wonderful anticipations and 
speculations concerning it. Animals have none. 6th. Man has 
responsibility and accountability, and a sense of responsibility and 
accountability to a higher power, and of reward and punishment. 
Animals have none. 7th. J^iIan has remorse for evil acts, and ap- 
proval of conscience for those that he calls good. Animals make 
no such distinctions in acts, and have neither remorse nor ap- 
proval. 8th. Man divides acts into voluntary and involuntary, 
and the hitter into right and wrong. He ahvays inquires into the 
nature of acts and things, and divides them into the categories of 
good and evil, true or false. Animals have not a particle of this 
in thought or act. 9th. Man always inquires into the cause or 
source of things, and their nature. Animals never do. They 
have no faculty impelling them to do so. 10th. Man reasons on 
his reasonings. Animals never do. 11th. Man has ideas of uni- 
versal, rational principles, universal truths, in mathematics, logic, 
ethics, science and art. Animals never have. 12th. Man reasons 
on his reasonings by means of these universal truths and build up 
vast systems of reasoning. Animals never do. loth. Animals, as 
individuals, do not accumulate a vast system of experience and 
thought. Man, as an individual, always does. 14th. Man, as a 
race, has accumulated the experience of generations in science, 
art, knowledge and all departments of life and thought. Ani- 
mals never have.' 15th. Men have built up vast systems of relig- 
ion ; always have. Animals never have. 16th. Men have built 
up vast systems of ethics, art, science and government. Animals 
never have. 17th. Man acts rationally and morally, from rational 
and moral nature and motive. Animals necessarily and instinct- 
ively. 18th. Man has free volition, a will in liberty. Animals 
have not. 19th. Man has to experiment, learn, discover; and he 
makes mistakes. Animals make no mistakes. 20th. Man makes 
sublime discoveries and grand inventions. Animals make none. 
21st. Man, as an individual, progresses, improves. Animals do 
not. 22d. Man, as a race, improves, progresses, and is susceptible 



APPENDIX. 443 

of endless progress. Animals are as they were at first, and are 
not susceptible of progress. 23d. Man invents and uses imple- 
ments and machines ; has to do so to accomplish his purposes. 
Animals use no implements ; need none to accomplish their ends. 
24th. Man, as an individual, spontaneously progresses. Animals 
do not. 25tli. Man, as a race, spontaneously progresses. Ani- 
mals do not. 26th. Man retrogresses rationally and morally, and 
in life, unless he accepts the true and good and practices them. 
Animals are liable to no such retrogression. 27th. The above 
facts concerning man prove that he is on probation. Animals are 
not. 28th. Man is a source of development and progress to others 
and those beneath hira. Animals are not. 29th. Man has the 
noble element of rational love, and the domestic feelings, and the 
family. Animals have not. 30th. Man has aspirations for the 
good, true and beautiful, and for progress and advancement. An- 
imals have none. 31st. Man's highest and true good is in self- 
denial and self-sacrifice for others. Animals are selfish, and self- 
preservation and gratification their supreme law and end. 32d. 
Man has produced the wise, the good, the learned, the great, the 
patriot, the philanthropist, the martyr. All this is foreign to and 
in direct opposition to brute nature. 33d. Man's real end is 
achieved by conquering nature, and rendering it subject to him- 
self, and in conquest of self and his own nature. The end of the 
brute is accomplished in servile obedience to nature at large and 
its own nature. 

Man has all these characteristics, and they are continually ex- 
panding in activity and power. There is not a trace of them in 
the brute. The most persistent effort of man's intelligence can not 
make the animal nature take on one of these characteristics or show 
a semblance of them. The animal can not be touched by them, 
'i'lipn, to talk of unintelligent physical conditions developing out of 
the animal what the highest efforts of man's reason can not touch 
■OY excite a trace of, is absurd. Evolution, however, asserts that all 
thfse noble qualities of man's rational, moral and religious na- 
ture have been evolved by the operations of blind, irrational na- 
ture, on the nature of the' brute. The theory of creation says 
that Infinite Wisdom created man a Spirit, like himself in nature, 
and made him in the mental and moral likeness of the Infinite 
Creator. XXI. Lastly, and to this we call special attention, as' 
the question of all questions in the problem. The co-ordination, 
arrangement, adjustment, adaptation, order, method, system, law, 
]>lan, design, purpose, prevision, provision, alternativity and 
clioice, the realization of these most exalted and abstract ideas 
of reason, and those of mathematics — beauty, harmony and util- 
ity — that are realized in each of the twenty elements of the prob- 
lem mentioned, whence came they? Evolution says, out of 
blind, irrational matter and force, or out of an Unknown Power, 
lleason says that it is an insult to reason to suggest that they 
were evolved by force and matter. It declares that the Power 
prodticing them is Reason, and must be known to be Reason. It 
declares that Reason realized these ideas and constructed the 
Universe in accordance with them in such realization. 



444 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

Such are the elements of the problem. Evolution utterly fails 
to account for them. They pronounce evolution an absurdity. 
Creation by reason, in accordance with the highest law of reason, 
alone can solve either of these elements of the problem, or the 
entire problem. They demonstrate creation by reason, and point 
to reason as the source of all existence and phenomena, as clearly 
as thought has its origin in mind. Then we suggest that the 
apostles of evolution — I. State the problem fully and fairly, 
especially these disputed elements. 11. That they state fairly 
and fully the conflicting theory, in its full strength. III. That 
they show by a fair application of the conflicting theory to each 
of these twenty elements of the problem that it fails to solve 
them. IV. That they establish the data on which they base evo- 
lution. Then show that the theory is a logical deduction from 
them, being careful not to expand it beyond what is warranted 
by the data; and, above all, that they beware of stretching the 
theory in application, and applying it to things with which it 
has no connection. Huxley failed, utterly failed, in every partic- 
ular of such work. His demonstration was as total a failure as 
ever was made in human effort. Let each believer of the theory 
of creation by intelligence notice particularly what the evolution- 
ist must do to solve the problem he has undertaken, as we have 
explained it above, and try all his speculations by such a test, and 
they will vanish like mists before the morning sun. 

Review of Carpenter's Fallacies of Testimony. 

The positions taken by the skeptic in regard to the New Testa- 
ment have been various and almost infinite in variety. It has 
been asserted that we have no evidence that such a person as 
Jesus, or such persons as his apostles, ever lived, and no evidence 
that any of the events of the New Testament history ever occur- 
red. These books were fabricated hundreds of years after the 
age in which these events are declared to have transpired. Or 
that the history is a fabrication of men of later ages, based on 
traditions and exaggerated legends of what Jesus and his apostles 
said and did. Or that it is an exaggeration and expansion in la- 
ter ages of brief simple writing.s of the apostolic age. Or that 
the history is an exaggeration of the life and sayings of Jesus, 
made by his enthusiastic fanatical apostles some years after his 
death. Or they are intentional exaggerations and fictions, woven 
around the real history of Jesus by his apostles. Or they are rec- 
ords of a mythical story that grew up around the career of Jesus 
in the course of perhaps a hundred years after his death. The 
searching criticism to which the books of the New Testament 
have been subjected has developed so much testimony to their auth- 
enticity and genuineness, and their truthfulness, that the skeptic 
has found he must either reject all the history of the world that 
is older than A. D. 1000, or accept the New Testament on the 
same grounds as he does all other literature older than that date. 
Hence all candid and well-informed skeptics accept the New Tes- 
tament as substantially authentic, genuine and truthful. This 



APPENDIX. 445 

they are compelled to do on account of the unaflFected air of can- 
dor, truthfulness and life-like narration that characterizes the his- 
tory, the definiteness and particularness of detail — the undesigned 
and natural coincidences perfectly harmonizing with the customs, 
literature*, persons, places and contemporaneous history of the 
apostolic age. 

Then there is contemporaneous history of the succeeding genera- 
tion. Then the candid skeptic has either to reject all literature 
as old as these books, or accept them. In the March No. of the 
u 'opular Science Monthly is a very shrewdly written article by Dr. 
Carpenter, that states the position of such persons at the present 
time. They are willing to accept the ordinary and the natural in 
tiiese writings, but the miraculous and supernatural they reject. 
But we can not do this, if we would. The supernatural in the 
New Testament, is not a foreign element foisted into the natural, 
that should cast out, nor a minor element that can be rejected and 
do no violence, or little violence to the natural. It it the basic 
idea of the entire book, in its history, doctrine, law, and rule of 
life. It is on it that the New Testament bases its claim to be 
accepted by men. Keject the supernatural, and the rest will 
crumble away in our grasp as surely as wiU the corpse after the 
spirit has been driven out by violence. Then such an attempt im- 
peaches the honesty of Jesus and his apostles. People believed 
Christ and his apostles wrought miracles. They never undeceived 
them but claimed that they did. They based their claims to be 
accepted as teachers, the claims of their doctrine, and the author- 
ity of this doctrine and themselves on this claim. Christ could 
not have had the influence over the people to lead them to believe 
that he wrought such miracles as he claimed to work, unless he 
really performed them. The actual performance of the miracles 
is the only rational cause of the belief. People, especially hostile, 
skeptical people, could not have been deceived in regard to his 
miracles. They could have undeceived themselves. His enemies 
would have exposed him. Then Jesus himself is the greatest of 
all miracles. His character, life, and teachings, are the miracle to 
be explained. They were utterly unselfish and purely benevolent, 
perfect in love and self-sacrifice. He was free from all prejudice, 
and was as broad as humanity in all things. He was entirely 
unambitious in all directions. He was self-sufficient in teachinj^s 
and life. His teachings were universal truths, universal and 
eternally applicable principles, susceptible of universal and eter- 
nal application. His life and teachings were perfect and complete, 
and without the blemishes of all other teachers. His lack of 
learning of acquaintance with the world, render this the miracle 
of the New Testament. It renders miracles perfectly consonant 
with his character. Enthusiasm or fanaticism never produced 
such a character. And he was absolutely free from either. Love 
of consistency did not impel him to allow the people to attach 
miracles to his acts. For he was perfectly honest and truthful, 
and no flaw can be found in his life and teachings. Then when 
such a character allows miracles to be attributed to him, and 



446 • THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

claims to work them, and bases his claims on them, he certainly 
wrought them. 

We can not account for the acceptance of the teachings of Jesus 
and his apostles except on this ground. Men accepted their 
teaching, before whom and among whom these miracles were 
claimed to be wrought. They changed their lives and conduct in 
accepting it. They had no earthly motive for doing so All such 
motives were against their doing so. They endured persecution 
and death for what they must have known to be false, unless it 
was true. Gibbon's four reasons for the acceptance of the religion 
of Jesus by such persons, concede nearly the whole ground. The 
extraordinary zeal of which he speaks could not have existed, un- 
less these persons knew that what they claimed to have seen really 
transpired. Their doctrine of future life was based on one of 
these miracles they claimed they witnessed. It would have had 
no influence on them unless they knew that the miracle really 
transpired and demonstrated its reality. Their pure and austere 
morality, which he concedes, forbids their being deceivers, and 
they Avere unless they witnessed these events. The growth of the 
Christian republic was impossible unless the builders and the ones 
they converted, knew the facts on which it rested to be real, and 
they must have known it if they were false. Then we can not 
reject the supernatural without destroying the character of Jesus 
and his apostles, and utterly destroying the history and doctrine 
of the New Testament, and rendering utterly incredible the early 
history of the church and early Christians, which skeptics them- 
selves admit to be true. 

We have, so far, based what we have said on the concession of 
the skeptic, that the New Testament is authentic, genuine, and 
truthful, at least substantially so. Carpenter seems to concede this, 
for he says the argument now is, " Granting that the narrators 
wrote what they saw, or believed they saw, etc," the argument 
Avould not assume that form unless the narrations be authentic 
and genuine. Such a concession w^ould not be made by him unless 
it were true. He concedes, then, the authen*ticity and genuineness 
of these writings. He does not state, however, the issue. He does 
not state it correctly. He says, " Granting that the writers nar- 
rate what they saw, or believed they had seen, or had heard from 
witnesses that they had reason to regard as trustworthy as them- 
selves, is their belief a sufficient basis for our belief?'' Now I pro- 
test that this is not tlie issue at all. The narrators do not present 
tlieir belief as a basis for our belief. They say " We have not fol- 
lowed cunningly devised fables, but were eye-witnesses of what we 
tell you." " We saw with our eyes, heard with our ears, and 
handled with our hands, what we tell you." The issue is this : 
Granting that we have their testimony, is their testimony a suffi- 
cient basis for our belief? Must not we accept their testimony 
on the same grounds that we accept any other, and all other testi- 
mony? Must not we reject any and all other testimony, on the same 
grounds we reject this? Although Carpenter seems to concede 
that we have their testimony, yet we will briefly recapitulate why 
we believe we have their testimonv, as they delivered it. Why 



APPENDIX. 447 

we believe that the apostles and companions of Jesus and his 
apostles wrote the testimony we have now, or why we accept these 
books as authentic and genuine. 

These facts will be conceded by all intelligent, candid skeptics : 
There was such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, who lived during 
the reign of Augustus and Tiberius, and suffered death under 
Tiberius. There were such men as James, John, Peter, Matthew, 
etc., who were his companions and followers, who preached what 
they said Jesus did and taught, and made disciples of Jesus of 
thousands of Jews and Gentiles, and founded cliurches, and .-suf- 
fered martyrdom and death for so doing. There was such a per- 
son as Saul or Paul of Tarsus, who preached, as he claimed, the 
teachings of Jesus, and made many converts, and established 
many churches, and suffered death under Nero. There were in 
the Roman Empire, in Nero's reign, scores, and doubtless hundreds 
of congregations of disciples of Jesus, made by these persons, em- 
bracing many thousands of persons. They were in Asia, Africa, 
Greece and Italy, and their islands, and in nearly all the cities of 
these countries. Tacitus so declares, and that Nero persecuted 
them. From Nero's day to that of Trojan, they suffered several 
severe persecutions. At that time, A. D. 100, according to 
Pliny's official report to the Roman Emperor, they had thou- 
sands of churches, and hundreds of thousands of members. In 
A. D. 150 they had increased to millions, and had controversies with 
Pagans and heretics and infidels, and with each other, and 
made appeals to the Roman government against the persecutions 
they endured. From A. D. 150 they were regarded with ap- 
prehension by the Roman government. In A. D. 250 they had 
increased to many millions, and had thousands of churches all 
over the empire, and were regarded with alarm by the govern- 
ment. 

The contemporaries of Jesus told their stories of his teachings 
and his acts. There were traditions extant in the apostle's day, 
from the death of Jesus to A. D. 100. There were the testimony 
of "living eye-witnesses or versions of them, and the witnesses Avere 
living during this period. Paul wrote many letters concerning 
the doctrine and acts of Jesus, of which authentic and genuine 
copies are extant. There were writings professing to be writen by 
the apostles, or to record what they said in A. D. 100. They were 
concerning the acts and teaching of Jesus. There were extant from 
A. D. 100 to A. D. 350, the epistles of Paul, and writings ])rofess- 
ing to be written by the companions of Jesus, or what they said 
Jesus taught or did. These writings were read, studied, used 
as a rule of faith and practice by these Christians. They were 
preached, commented upon, and written about until a vast litera- 
ture grew upon them. They Avere used in controversies with 
each other, with infidels, with Pagans, and in public appeals to 
government, by these Christians. From A. D. 100 to 350 large 
numbers of learned men abandoned Judaism, Paganism and 
philosophy for these books. They preached them, taught them, 
wrote on l!iem, suffered persecution and martyrdom for them. 
None will deny these statements. 



448 THE PJIOBI.EM OF PROBLEMS. 

Then these queries arise : Did these Christians have the same 
books from A. D. 100 to A. D. 350 ? Did they have the same 
books in all places ? Were their books changed or corrupted dur- 
ing this period ? Have we the books they had ? Had they 
other books that we have not ? Have the books we have been 
corrupted since their day ? Or are they authentic and genuine ? 
We can trace the books we have now back to A. D. 850. We 
have three old copies from different and independent sources, 
reaching back to that period, that are as we have them now. 
This is conceded. Perhaps we may as well glance at the apocry- 
phal books of the New Testament, of which the infidels talk so 
much. We agree that there are apocryphal writings extant, and 
that there were others lost. But we deny that, with perhaps one 
or two exceptions, these can be traced back to A. D. 200. We deny 
that even in their day, which was usually long after this period, 
that they were accepted by any considerable portion of Christiana 
as authentic and genuine. We deny that they were ever ex- 
cepted as sacred, or inspired, or canonical like our- present books, 
by any considerable portion of Christians. They were in no sense 
rivals of our present books. We read of no great controversies 
over these or any such books, as there would have been 
had there been such books, from A. D. 100 to 200. There were 
no forgeries of books during this period, for we read of no contro- 
versies, such as such acts must have occasioned. Our present 
books were not written from A. D. 100 to 200, or we would have, 
in the literature of the church, records of the controversies such 
acts would have occasioned. 

The writings quoted and appealed to, then, were accepted with- 
out question, and without rivals. No mention is made of rivals. 
Some of the quotations that infidels clamor over were of oral tra- 
dition. Some of these were written by such men as Papias. Some 
were quoted by writers on a few occasions. No one ever regard- 
ed them as canonical, like the other books. The writers from A. D. 
100 to A. D. 250 were meii of pure morality, lofty and severe vir- 
tue. They opposed all deceit. They condemned all attempts at 
deceit. They would not have been guilty of it in their writings. 
They had no motive for it. They died for their love of the 
truth. They preached and practiced reverence for their sacred 
books, and scrupulous care in keeping them pure. They were 
learned and intelligent men, and some of them men of eminent 
learning and ability. They had no motive for such corruption. 
It would have exposed them to defeat by their enemies. Their 
enemies never accused them of such an act. Their writings and 
their books they have handed to us as canonical escaped such 
corruption. Will the infidel prove that the apocryphal books he 
prates so much about were written before A. D. 200? That they 
were ever accepted as authentic and genuine by any portion of 
Christians? That even when they were accepted as authentic 
and genuine, that they were regarded as inspired and canonical? 
That any books but those we have now were regarded as such ? 
That there ever were any rivals to these books? Will he tell us 
how many times apocryphal books are quoted by writers before 



APPENDIX. 449 

A. D. 200? How many times they are quoted as canonical? 
Will he tell us what evidence he has that there was any dispute 
on this question? Wi]l he tell us, if he refers to sentiments en- 
tertained by certain writers, that it was right to deceive in relig- 
ious matters, if any Christian writer before A. D. 200 entertained 
.such an idea? Will he show that any considernble body of 
Christians before the year 200 did so ? Will he show that any 
of our present books were corrupted by such persons before A. D. 
250? Or at any time? Let us have proof, and not insinuations. 

We reject these apocryphal books for these reasons, and refuse 
for the same reasons to have them used as rivals of the canonical 
books. They are extravagant, foolish and puerile, like all fabu- 
lous legends. They are just like the age in which we first find 
them — the fourth and fifth centuries — when superstition and 
such conceits abounded. They contain traces of the heresies and 
controversies of that age. Their style is entirely dififerent from 
that of the canonical books. Their arguments and ideas are 
foolish, extravagant conceits, like the works of that age (400 to 
500). They attempt, just as mere human curiosity would, to patch 
up the history of Jesus by telling of his childhood. There is a 
chasm as wide as between the romances of Lippard and Bancroft's 
history between them and the plain, simple, grand history of the 
New Testament. They are not quoted or referred to by the writers 
of the second and third centuries more than four or five times at 
the most, and there is dispute whether these quotations refer to 
apocryphal books. There is dishonesty in the way the infidel nses 
these books, and the claimshe makes for them. He exaggerates, mis- 
represents, and actually manufactures many of his so-called facts. 

We will now ]>resent our reasons for believing that the New 
Testament books are authentic and genuine. 1. We have, in the 
Peshito-Syriac translation, a translation as nearly like our pre- 
sent books as a translation can be like the original, and made, all 
critics of note admit, early in the second century, and very prob- 
ably in the latter part of the first, or, in other words, certainly 
not more than twenty years after John, and probably during his 
life. 2. We have, in the old Italic, Ethiopic and Coptic transla- 
tions, translations bearing the same similarity, made during the 
second century, or within one hundred years of John, and proba- 
bly during the life of some who were cotemporary with him. 
3. We have, in the Canon Muratori, a catalogue of the books of 
the New Testament, with the exception of two torn off at the 
beginning, and one or two minor omissions, just as we have them 
now. All critics of note place this in the second century, and 
about A. D. 170, or within seventy years of John. 4. We have 
extant writings of Barnabas and Clement of Eome, cotempora- 
ries of the apostles, Justyn and Ignatius, who were cotemporary 
with John in early life, Iranseus, Origen, Tertullian and Clement 
of Alexandria, Avho were of the next generation. Barnabas and 
Clement quote from some of the present gospels. Ju.styn says 
they were read in the churches. He does this in A. D. 140, or 
fifty years after John, in a pnblic memorial to the Roman gov- 
ernment. Ignatius makes thousands of quotations ; Iranseus over 
38 



450 THE rJlOBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

seven thousand. TertuUian quotes from every chapter of Mat- 
thew, Mark and Luke, and nearly every chapter of Jolin, and 
from the rest of the New Testament in proportion. Our present 
New Testament can be largely reproduced from his writings. 
Origen and Clement of Alexandria quote so much that our pre- 
sent New Testament, with the exception of a small portion, can 
be reproduced from their writings. 5. These writings were quoted 
in controversies, public controversies between Christians, between 
Christians and heretics, infidels and pagans. Quotations from our 
present books were made in thousands of cases, and they were quoted 
and referred to as existing books, known, read and used by Chris- 
tians as sacred books, and a rule of faith. 6. They were quoted by 
Justin, Origen and others, in the same way in public documents 
addressed to the government. 7. In their writings these defend- 
ers of Christianity have left their replies to those who assailed 
it. In them they quote statements of heretics, infidels and pagans 
of the existence of such books and of their contents, that prove 
they were our present books. As these were quotations in public 
controversy they must have been substantially correct. 8. Taci- 
tus, Pliny, Lucian, and other pagan writers, have left testimony 
that such people existed, that they had such books, and other 
testimony corroborating the main features of these books. 9. 
These books were read, studied, used as rule of life, and regarded 
as sacred, commented on and discussed and written about, until 
a vast literature grew upon them. They sustained a relation to 
the life of millions of people that was peculiar and sacred. 10. 
These writers abandoned paganism and philosophy for those books 
and Christianity. They laid down their lives for their belief. 
They endured loss of all things. They were of lofty and severe 
morality, says Gibbon. They condemned all fraud and deceit. 
They regarded these books as sacred. They enjoined as a most 
sacred duty keeping them pure. They condemned, unqualified- 
ly, all idea of corrupting them. They were men of learning and 
ability. Some were mea of eminent learning and ability. They 
must have known whether these books were authentic and genu- 
ine or not. They died for their belief of their authenticity and 
genuineness. They were neither hypocrites nor deceivers, for 
they had no motive for such conduct. All motive of that kind 
was in the opposite direction. They were not ignorant or fools. 
They knew what they affirmed, and for Avhich they laid down 
their lives. This gives these books a series of evidences no other 
books have, and the highest kind of evidence. 

11. This religion was founded, the events on which it was based, 
chiimed to have transpired in a most public manner, in a learned, 
skeptical, hostile age. These books were accepted by learned 
men in a learned, skeptical, hostile age — by men who must have 
known that they were not what they claimed, if they w^ere not, 
and men sacrificed all advantages for them, gained no earthly ad- 
vantage, and suffered death and persecution for them, under such 
circumstances, and these men were neither fools nor fanatics, and 
could not have been knaves, hypocrites or deceivers. 12. 
Their books are our present books, for Lord Hails, Sir George 



APPENDIX. 451 

Dalrymple, reproduced all of our present New Testament, except 
eleven paragraphs, from the writings of these men, writers from 
the apostles' day to A, D. 250. 13. The undesigned coinci- 
dences and incidental allusions to customs, events, persons, places, 
etc., is in exact accordance with the age of the apostles. 14. There 
are no traces of the events, places, customs, persons, etc., of the 
later age to which infidelity ascribes them. No forger could have 
secured the exact coincidence on the one hand, and avoid such 
coincidences on the other. 15. There are no traces of the con- 
troversies and heresis of the later ages to which infidelity assigns 
them, as there are in the apocryphal books written in that age. 
They were not written in that age, or the writers would have 
placed in such books support to their opinions, as they did in 
apocryphal books. They were written before such age, or in 
the age of the apostles. 16. These books are written in Hellen- 
istic dialect, Greek written by a Hebrew. At first the Hebrews 
controlled the churches. They did in the apostles' day. Later, 
the Greeks controlled the churches. The Greeks had fierce dis- 
putes with the Hebrews in that later age. They despised the 
ITebrews. They would not have received forgeries from the He- 
brews. These books must have been written by Hebrews. They 
were written among and by Hebiews, and received by both He- 
brew and Greek, during the first century, during the dominance 
of the Hebrew. 

17. Renan and other intelligent, candid skeptics acce])t the au- 
thenticity, genuineness and truthfulness of most of the Pauline 
epistles, and of portions of other books. This they do because 
they must accept these books, if they do others as old. If they 
reject these books, they must all others as old. But if they ac- 
cept this much, the connection is so vital and inseparable with 
the rest that all must be accepted. No such separation can be 
logically or reasonably made. 18. Tliere is all the evidence, all 
kinds of evidence, for these books, tliat there is for any other 
books as old. There is other and far higher and stronger evidence 
for. these books, that there is not for other books. There is one 
hundred fold as much evidence for the authenticity, genuineness 
and truthfulness of this small volume, the New Testament, as 
there is for all the profane literature, for all the literature of the 
world as old. There is a thousand fold more evidence for this 
book, than there is for any book as old, that the infidel accepts 
unquestioned. There is not a book in the New Testament that 
has not more evidence than any book as old, that the infidel ac- 
cepts. Most of the books of the New Testament have, each of 
them separately, more evidence than all extant literature ac- 
cepted by the infidel. 19. Subject the literature of the world, 
aside from Christian literature, that claims to be older than A. D. 
1000, to one hundredth part of the severity to which infidelity 
subjects Christian literature, and there would not be a vestige of 
it left. Subject all literature to the same severity, and we would 
not have a book one hundred years old left, and a large portion 
of subsequent literature, even of living authors, would be re 
jected. We have two thousand MSS. of the New Testament. 



4o2 THE PROBI.EM OF PROBLEMS. 

Several copies are older than A. D. 1000. Of most books accepted 
by infidels, as old, we have but a few, in most cases but ten or 
twelve, and very rarely over a score. Not one of these is older 
tiian A. D. 1000. But few older than A. D. 1400. We have more 
MSS. of this one book than of all literature of the world that is 
as old. We have several copies of the New Te.stament older than 
any book accepted by the infidel. They are older, by six hundred 
years, than any book he accepts, and a thousand years older than 
some he accepts. Such are the facts. For these reasons I ac- 
cept the New Testament as authentic and genuine. For these 
reasons I believe I have the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
John, Paul, Peter, James and Jude ; or the testimony of eye- 
witnesses, and the record of the testimony of eye-witnesses. 

But it may be asked. Why do you believe their testimony ? Is 
their testimony a sufficient foundation for your belief? It is for 
these reasons. Every canon of evidence sustains their testimony, as 
Greenleaf shows. These events were such as are clearly suscepti- 
ble of proof They were open, public, and could have been ex- 
posed if there had been fraud. They were in the presence of 
shrewd, scrutinizing enemies. There could be no fraud or trick- 
ery. There could be no mistake or delusion. They were of such 
a nature that mistake or delusion was impossible. The testimony 
is that of eye-witnesses. The witnesses were, in intelligence and 
character, competent. They were not deceivers. Were not de- 
ceived. They were not deceived into extravagance and fanatic- 
ism and myths. Their morality in life and teachings is above 
question. 'J'heir teachings and lives forbid the idea of deception. 
Their suffering, persecution and martyrdom proves this. A man 
ma.y, through self-interest, suffer persecution for testimony, but 
never death, for he has no interest in such a case. Self-interest is 
all in the opposite direction. A fanatic may die for a dogma, but 
never for a fact or for his own testimony, when it is false. A false 
witness never suffered martyrdom for his lie. His character and 
all self-interest forbids it. The witnesses testified to the facts in 
the same country, and among persons who must have known that 
the events did not transpire, if such were the case, and began 
such testimony right after the events. Thousands of these peo- 
ple accepted it, and forsook all for such testimony, and suffered 
persecution and death for what they must have known to be 
false, if such were not the case. There was no reason for this, 
and every reason that could induce fraud was directly against it. 
Then these preachers claimed to work similar works all over the 
Roman empire, in the same open and public manner. On such 
a claim they converted thousands of eye-witnesses, of learned and 
skeptical, in that learned and skeptical age, who, in oi)position 
to all interests, accepted persecution and martyrdom, in l3elieving 
their claim to perform such works openly in their presence. 

Let me here emphasize a thought that is vital to this entire 
discussion. The narratives of the New Testament have every 
feature of a truthful history by eye-witnesses. The account is di- 
rect, natural, life-like, and is so, not on account of the art of the 
writer, which is apparent in every page, as is the case with a novel, 



APPENDIX. 453 

but because the writer writes what he saw as it transpired. 
There is no attempt to excite wonder, or to astonish, or amaze, 
or glorify the actor, but to tell the plain story. We are never 
told of the personal appearance of Jesus, or of his attitudes and 
gestures and manner, like the novelist, but just the unvarnished 
tale of what he said and did. The story is as plain and life-like 
as the tale of a child. No more perfect models of unadorned 
narrations of facts ever were written. As you read you feel that 
the writer saw just what he wrote. Histories of wonders and 
apocryphal works differ in all respects from this. Extravagance, 
exaggeration, desire to tell something wonderful, and to make 
the story as wonderful as possible, appears in every sentence. 
The narratives of the New Testament differ from stories of won- 
ders as history does from the marvels of a haunted house or ghost 
stories. This utter lack of all characteristics of such narratives, 
this very perfection of historic narration, is the highest of evi- 
dence that they are unvarnished, unadorned, unexaggerated 
statements of fticts as the narrators saw them, and that they saw 
them just as they were, without extravagance or delusion. 

Monumental institutions, baptism, the supper, the Lord's Day, 
the name Christian, were established in commemoration of these 
events. Were established at the time, in the place, and among 
the persons where these events were said to have taken place. 
Were in commemoration of events that these persons could not 
have helped knowing to be false, unless they actually transpired. 
Thousands of these accepted these institutions and died for these 
lies, unless they were realities, when they must have known they 
were lies, if they were not realities. Out of all this grew a 
grand system of religion, that has done more for the world than 
all else combined. It has reformed the wicked, the vile, and 
lifted the debased and fallen. No system of truth can do more 
than has been done by this system of falsehood and deception, 
or of delusion and fanaticism, unless these facts be realities, un- 
less this testimony be true. For these reasons do I accept the 
testimony of the witnesses. 

But there are miracles in the history. Well, what of it ? 
They are impossible. If the objector is omniscient and knows 
all there is in the universe, he can affirm they are impossible. 
If there be a God, they are possible and probable, if there is 
sufficient reason for such an act. It is no more impossible or im- 
probable, than an act of creation or starting a course of evolution. 
It is contrary to human experience, human experience of nature, 
and is therefore improbable, so improbable that it can not be es- 
tablished by testimony. It is assumed that the experience of 
certain generations is "the experience of all men, and their expe- 
rience of nature is all nature. Then we present the testimony 
of hundreds of persons of their experience of nature, or at least 
of their experience. Then experience is presented to disprove 
miracles and rejected in thier proof. Again, a lack of experience in 
the objector is used as experience, and used to .set aside experi- 
ences, the very thing he claims must be the standard. There is a 
four-fold defect in Hume's argument. 1. Lack of universal 



454 THE PROBLEM OF I'EOBLEMS. 

knowledge. This alone can give the experience necessarj^ to 
make the argument valid, 2. Lack of experience is used a.^ ex- 
perience. 3. Testimony is relied on to establish what the objector 
wants to establish, and rejected when it conflicts with it. 4. 
Testimony of a portion of the race as to their actual experience is 
set to one side on account of the objector's lack of such experi- 
ence. Then in regard to a miracle we ask : Is there in the uni- 
verse power sufiicient to the act ? There is. Was there adequate 
reason for the act ? There was. Was the act worthy of the 
Power and the object for which it was done? It was. Was it 
calculated to accomplish the end? It was. Practically, has i" 
done so ? It has. These questions apply to the miracles of 
Christianity. 

But Carpenter practically admits that miracles are probable, or 
possible rather, and under circumstances may be probable. The 
reader is referred to chapter vii for answers to the rationalistic 
arguments against miracles. There remains but one more ques- 
tion to be answered. If you accept the miracles of Christianity, 
why not accept the wonders of Paganism, Mohammedanism. 
Catholicism, Mormonism, and all religions and delusions, and spirit- 
ism, witchcraft, sorcery, and kindred delusions? Albert Barnes 
says this is the real question in regard to miracles, and he wonders 
that infidels have not pressed it more, and virtually confesses his 
inability to meet it. Carpenter can say with Othello, "On that 
hint I spoke." He asks why not accept these wonders as Avell as 
the miracles of Christianity? If we reject the wonders, why not 
reject the miracles of Christianity? We frankly reply, if they 
have no more evidence than the wonders, reject them. But 
because there are counterfeits, and many, is no argument that 
we should reject all coin, and that there is no genuine currency. 
Because the counterfeit has many of the features of the genuine, 
is no reason why we should reject both, for that was the attempt 
in counterleiting, to give it all the features of the genuine. But 
unless we can detect the diiferences, show features in the coun- 
terfeit not in the genuine, and features in the genuine wanting 
in tlie counterfeit, we can not distinguish between them. Let us 
first, then, expose certain fallacies in Carpenter's exposure of 
fallacies, and then we will be ready to show why we reject these 
wonders, and do not, on the same grounds, reject the miracles. 
Why we accept the miracles and do not the wonders. 

Tlie first is his citing the multitude of witnesses there are for 
these wonders. A falsehood may have a thousand-fold more tes- 
timony than a truth, and yet Carpenter will accept the fact and 
reject the falsehood ; and the number of witnesses is not the only 
thing he would consider, or even the principal thing. The char- 
acter of the act, and of the witnesses, will be taken into account. 
A hundred men may testify that Washington was guilty of some 
crime or folly, and we reject it because we know from his char- 
acter that it can not be true. One man may testify to his doing 
an act of opposite character and we accept it, because accordant 
with what we know to be his character. So, also, the character 
of system is to be taken into account. Again, he complains that 



APPENDIX. 455 

no scientific tests were applied to the miracles. No scientists 
ever tested them. Scientific tests are not the tests they need. 
Nor are great men or scientific men the best men to test them. 
They were out of their field. They would be the poorest persons 
to test them. The case of Wallace, Owens, Hare, Crookes, Tall- 
mage, Edmond.s, and a thousand others prove this. It is not 
scientific men that have exposed spiritism. They have been as 
easily duped as any class. Shrewd, practical men of common 
sense have done it. If I w^ere the Doctor, I would say as little 
as possible about that! Just such keen, skeptical, shrewd men 
did test the miracles of the New Testament. His cases of visual 
illusion do not apply, for not one of the miracles were of that 
class. Then alloAving the widest margin to visual illusion, it 
could not affect materially such acts as these miracles. Consti- 
tution and training could not materially affect such acts as these 
miracles. The constitution of the keen, skeptical Jews, was in 
opposition to accepting the miracles. The witnesses had no 
mental expectancy. Mental expectancy was often in the oppo- 
site direction, and always with the Jews. 

The miracles were not at all of the same character as the won- 
ders of spiritism, and the other wonders he cites. Nor were the 
witnesses such persons as t])e mediums, in an abnormal state of 
mind or body, or both. Nor were the witnesses excited mental 
expectants, like the circles of spiritists and other witnesses 
he cites. The facts are not all visions and trances, and seen in 
vision and trance. His reference to Swedenborg does not meet 
the case. The events testified to were not like those testified to 
by Crookes, nor were they performed under such circumstances, 
favoring trickery or delusion. The witnesses were shrewd, sensi- 
ble men, and not scientists, like Crookes and Hare. The apostles 
■were not sensitives nor enthnsiasts, nor were the facts they testi- 
fied to at all like the facts referred to by. Carpenter. They were 
sturdy, clear-headed, hard-headed fishermen, who displayed, in 
after life, most admirable coolness and common sense. Misinter- 
pretations of sensation will not do either. The Avitnesses, neither 
apostles nor Jews nor Pagans, had prepossessions that would cause 
such misinterpretation. The facts could not be thus misinter- 
preted. His elaborate theory of ideo-motor action, or unconscious 
cerebration and control of muscle, will not touch a case in the 
miracles. Nor will his theory that the witnesses long after- 
wards stated what long thought had lead them to believe. They 
could not thus unconsciously deceive themselves concerning such 
facts. Nor concerning so many acts. Nor so many other per- 
sons who know that they never transpired. There was no time 
for such self-deception, for the apostles preached the miracles of 
Jesus immediately, and among those who must have been eye- 
witnesses. 

The Tell case and the life of Jesus are not parallel in a single 
feature. Has no eye-witnesses. It was hundreds of years in ac- 
cumulating. Contemporaries and eye-wdtnesses did not die for 
testimony. The world was not revolutionized in opposition to its 
efforts by eye-witnesses, by means of the facts in Tell's case, and 



456 THE PROBLEM OF PKOBLEMS. 

millions did not die for tlieir testimony, to what they must have 
known to be false, if it were not true. The case of St. (Jalumban 
bears no analogy either. The acts were frivolous, absurd. Noth- 
ing depended on them, on a belief or rejection of them. Neither 
witnesses, nor acts, nor system, nor results be.ir any comparison 
to the New Testament. His tacit and practical dragging the 
miracles of the New Testament, and the character of their actors, 
to the level of the tricks of the Ohasidim, and the character of 
such knaves must be rebuked as an outr.ige. Does Carpenter 
mean to say that the pure, sinless and perfect Jesus, the be- 
loved John, tlie noble James, the frank and open-hearted 
Peter, were on a level with the knaves in the Ohasidim, and 
that their exalted, self-sacrificing, purely benevolent, miracles 
were like the selfish knavery, and falsehood and trickery of such 
knaves? Why does he say that he fails to see any essential 
difference ? True, he throws in the Old Testament between, 
as a means of letting down as easily as possible the outrage, 
but why quote them in the connection he does, if he does not 
intend to iiave his remark apply to the miracles of the New 
Testament? His attempt to account for healing by natural 
agency, is weak to puerility. It will not apply to but few of 
the miracles. It impeaches the ch.aracter of Jesus and his 
apostles, for they claimed the healing to be a miracle. 

We draw the following line of demonstration between the 
miracles of the New Testament and the wonders, as reasons why 
we accept the miracles and do not accept, the wonders — why re- 
ject the wonders and do not reject the miracles. Let us warn the 
objector against claiming, because he can occasionally find a 
miracle that has not one of the characteristics claimed for them, 
that he has set the argument to one side ; or because occasionally 
a wonder is not of the character I attribute to them, he can set it 
to one side. We take them as classes, and especially the leading 
acts in each class. We claim that taking the majority and the 
leading acts in each class, the characters assigned to them are 
just : 1. The miracles were of such a character as to be clearly 
susceptible of proof by testimony. Wonders are not generally of 
that nature. 2. The witnesses to the miracles were living eye- 
witnesses. This is not often the case with wonders. 3. The 
witnesses to miracles were in circumstances to know whether they 
transpired or not. Such is not usually the case with wonders. 
4. The circumstances of miracles were such that, if they did not 
transpire, witnesses must have known i^ The opposite is the case 
with wonders. 5. The witnesses of miracles were competent in 
knowledge and experience to test them, know and testify. Such 
was not the case often with wonders. 6. All circumstances favor- 
ing deception, fraud, trickery, or illusion, or delusion, were ab- 
sent in case of Bible miracles. The very opposite is true of the 
wonders. 7. If mistake, delusion and fraud were detected always 
when tests were applied the miracles should have been rejected. 
Such was not the case with miracles. Such has ever been the case 
with wonders. 8. Miracles were various and diversified. They 



APPENDIX. 457 

were almost infinite in variety, and in every domain of nature. 
Wonders are few and in a select line chosen by the operator. 

9. Miracles were in public, and in the presence of scrutinizing 
enemies. They asked no protection or concealment. Wonders 
are in secret, seek concealment and the presence of believers 
only. 10. In nearly all cases, conditions were such as to render 
mistake, fraud or delusion impossible in case of miracles. Won- 
ders were performed in conditions favoring fraud, mistake and 
delusion. They seek and demand such conditions. 11. In most 
cases no conditions Avere arranged or demanded for miracles. 
Wonders demand careful preparation and arrangement of condi- 
tions. 12. If conditions were arranged for Bible miracles, they 
were such as rendered the miracle greater and more difficult, and 
prevented all fraud, mistake or delusion. The conditions demanded 
by the wonders, or under which they were performed, were just 
such as favored mistake, fraud and delusion, and would be de- 
manded to produce them. 13. Miracles were unique, and were 
not such as can be paralleled by trickery delusion or unusual 
abnormal phenomena. Wonders are just such as can be paral- 
leled by fraud, delusion and abnormal phenomena. 14. Miracles 
Avere without aid of second causes. They were immediate, in- 
stantaneous and spontaneous. Wonders were through second 
causes and protracted and laborious effort. 15. There were no 
failures in the miracles. There were frequent failures in the 
wonders. 16. Workers of miracles never had to resort to lying 
and fraud to cover failures. Workers of wonders often had to 
do so. 17. Workers of miracles were of the best and highest 
character. Workers of wonders often the reverse. 18. Reality 
of miracles was not questioned by the people among whom they 
Avere wrought, although often relentless enemies. Wonders were 
denied generally by many, and often by all but a few. 

19. Miracles Avere characterized by mercy, goodness and benev- 
olence, and Avere without fee or rcAvard. Wonders are malicious, 
evil, and for fee or reAvard. 20. Miracles Avere characterized by 
dignity, grandeur and divinity. Wonders are silly, puerile, child- 
ish and Avorthless. 21. The Avitnesses for miracles remained an 
unbroken phalanx in their testimony in the face of persecution 
and death, and laid down their Hats for their testimony. Wit- 
nesses for Avonders often confessed fraud, and never submitted to 
such tests. 22. Miracles were not a]).surd and Avithout object, 
but Avere grand in character and l:ad a noble object. W^onders 
were absurd in character and without object, or had an evil one. 
23. Miracles Avere not productive of evil. Wonders generally 
were. 24. Great results, such as restoring to life rr healing the 
cripple, followed miracles, and they could be tested by them. 
No great results followed wonders to test them. 25. The testi- 
mony of witnesses for miracles is simple, plain, life-like and his- 
torical, and free from fables and extravagances and absurdities. 
Testimony for Avonders is not historical in character, and is full 
of absurdities and extravagances. The apocryphal accounts of 
Jesus and of miracles are of that character, and differ from the 
New Testament, just as fable does from history. 26. The wit- 

39 



458 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

nesses for mimcles told their story in the same pLice and time 
as the miracles transpired. Witnesses for wonders never did. 

27. The account of the miracles is clear, plain history, not tran- 
sient rumors. Testimony for wonders generally were rumors. 

28. Miracles required belief with whole heart. Eternal life 
depended on them. Changed Avhole life. Life of believers in 
that day depended on them. Nothing depends, generally, on 
belief of wonders. 

29. Miracles were not in accordance with' views of hearers and 
witnesses, but in opposition generally to the views and wishes of 
most of them. Wonders are generally in accordance with views 
and wishes of hearers and witnesses. 30. Miracles were wrought 
in advance of belief of the religion to establish it. Wonders 
usually follow after belief 31. Miracles actually transpired, or 
the whole account is false. There is no medium ground of mis- 
take, fraud, trickery or unusual and abnormal phenomena. They 
admit of no explanation by natural causes. Wonders are paral- 
leled by mistake, fraud, trickery and abnormal or unusual phe- 
nomena. Can be accounted for on iiatural principles. 32. 
Miracles submit to and admit of all tests. A multitude of wit- 
nesses. Were permanent in effects. Had all possible tests. 
Wonders refuse to submit to tests. Usually but one witness, or 
but few, and excited believers. They are momentary in effects. 
33. Miracles can not be regarded as exaggerations that can be 
reduced to natural events by proper criticism. Wonders are just 
of that character. 34. Miracles were addressed to senses. Not 
to passion and imagination. Were open, in public. Wonders 
were the very opposite. 35. Miracles were wrought by power 
of God, Christ, Holy Spirit and angels. Wonders by witches, 
goblins, demons and vile spirits. 36. Miracles were worthy of the 
character of their author. Wonders are in exact accord with low, 
vile characters. It is blasphemy to attribute them to divinity, 
37. Miracles are the basis of a sublime system of history, morals 
and religion. ^Vonders are not. 38. Miracles revolutionized 
men's lives. Reformed the wicked and elevated the degraded. 
Wonders never did, but rather degraded. 

39. Miracles wrought a revolution in the world's history. 
Apostles died for them. So did a church of glorious martyrs. 
The political, social, domestic, mental, moral and religious life 
of the enlightened world is based on them, and has been molded 
by them. Nothing of the kind ever followed the wonders. 40. 
The evidence of miracles increases with time. Their glorious 
results in the history of the race and the lives of men. Thf 
increase in freedom, social freedom and happiness, in domestic 
happiness, in mental power and purity, in moral life and purity, 
and in religion in nations, the great movements of the age, are 
all a direct testimony to the miracles of the New Testament. 
Such is not the case with these wonders. No system of delusion, 
mistake or falsehood, as Carpenter evidently regards these mira- 
cles of tlie New Testament, could produce such results. For 
these reasons we accept the miracles and do not accept the won- 
ders. For these reasons we reject the wonders and do not the 



APPENDIX. ' 459 

miracles. We commend to Dr. Carpenter and his associates in 
opinion these reasons, asking a careful, thoughtful consideration 
of them. "If I had not done works that no other man ever did, 
they had been without sin. If you believe not my words, believe 
on account of my works " — Jesus. In conclusion, we enter an 
eternal protest against any such unfair system of reasoning as 
overlooks the above radical differences between the miracles of 
the New Testament and all the wonders as this article of Car- 
penter. 

What will you give in the place of Christianity f 

We have already several times demonstrated, by an appeal to 
human nature, as manifested in human conduct, as revealed to 
us by history, geography and ethnology, that man is a religious 
being, a worshiping being. All systems of mental philosophy 
affirm that there is a religious element in man's nature. Phre- 
nology says that it is composed of three essential elements of 
man's mental constitution — Veneration, spirituality and con- 
scientiousness. It also affirms that the perfect and absolute ob- 
ject of the awe, reverence, worship, love, adoration and aspira- 
tion, that are the natural expression of veneration, is God, or an 
Infinite, Perfect and Absolute Being, the only perfect object of 
these emotions and feelings. It also affirms that the perfect and 
absolute object of spirituality is God, who is Infinite, Absolute 
Spirit. It also affirms that the perfect standard and authority 
and sanction of the " ought " of conscientiousness, " I owe the 
doing of this," and of " duty," or " This act is due to," is God, 
as Absolute Lawgiver, Ruler, Judge and Executive. All human 
history declares that man is a worshiping being — that he will 
become like the Being he worships — that he regards this Being as 
the supreme intelligence, knowing what is right, the supreme 
model of what is right. Then religion is the regnant element 
in man's nature, in determining his morality, his life and con- 
duct. Man, then, must have a perfect object of worship as an 
object of awe, reverence, veneration, love, devotion and aspiration, 
as a model and as a sanction and authority for what is right, 
Asa matter of history, religion has furnished to government and 
law their foundation, to 'morality its sanction, to revolution its 
aspiration, animating principle, consolation and assurance of 
success and reward, to poetry its exalted themes, to painting 
juid sculpture their themes. Religion has been the regnant })rin- 
ciple in human conduct, a dynamic power in human effort and 
progress, originating the idea and aspiration of progress, giving 
the first impulses, sustaining man in his efforts, cheering him in 
his struggles, and directing and controlling his efforts. The 
great legislators, reformers, poets, moralists of all ages, the men 
who have moved the world, and lifted it, have been men of re- 
ligious faith, and have based their movements, laws, poems, 
morals and reforms and ideas on religion. 

Men know and feel the action of this religious element, and 
its cravings for the Absolute, True, Beautiful and Good, or God. 
Hence, when atheism and materialism asks them to cast to one 



460 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

side all religion, this element in their nature, feeling that a ruth- 
less attempt is made to strangle it, cries out in the question: 
"What will you give us in its stead?" There are manufacturing 
cities, the smoke of whose furnaces continually obscure the sun. 
There are persons who work, and even live in mines. Some have 
been born and reared there. Their nature has become so per- 
verted and abnormal that it can not bear the light of the sun. 
It is oppressive. Suppose these persons were to demand of all 
the rest of mankind that they shut out the sun and its light, the 
cry of reason would be, " What Avill you give us in its stead?" 
And mankind would pay but little attention to eulogies on the 
benignant and glorious nature of gas, that never scorches as does 
the sun, or oppresses Avith its heat, or dazzles the eye with its 
brilliancy. They would care but little about the protests of such 
persons that they felt no need of the sun, and got along better with- 
out him than with him. They would be influenced but little 
by such vagaries of abnormal, perverted nature. Materialists 
have felt this element of their own nature struggling like the 
Titans under the mountains of sophistry they have piled on it. 
They have felt the pressure of this demand of the human soul, 
when presenting their spirit-murdering policy for acceptance. 
Conite, after spending a life in denouncing religion, and in try- 
ing to exterminate it, at last plucked out the eye of religion, 
drove out the spirit of the system, and, with the corpse left, con- 
htructed the " religion of humanity." His own nature was not 
satisfied, and he found other natures were not satisfied, unless 
this element were gratified. Even the cool, rational, logical 
Mill approved of this system, to a certain extent, but would 
substitute private adoration of woman as the religion. Hare the 
Owens and Denton run into spiritism. IngersoU and others show 
tendencies the same way. All prove that they have a religious 
nature that they can not extirpate, and whose clamors they can 
not stifle. All these attempts to gratify it are like those of 
Comte, an emptying of the sacramental cup of religion of the 
wine of the real presence. Deity, and then deifying the cup. 

But some attempt to meet this demand by pertness, dogmatism 
and ridicule, that is often real arrogance and insolence. One of 
the latest attempts of this kind that we have seen is a little tract 
from the Boston Investigator office, entitled, Religion: An Infi- 
del's Answer to the Question, " What Will Yon Give Us In Its 
Place f It commences — " The advocate of freethought is often 
asked, when he has exposed the absurdities of the Christian re- 
ligion. What he proposes to give in its place? Our reply 
is (and we presume it is the reply of infidels generally) that we 
regard Christianity as a system of superstition, and can not see 
that any thing is needed in its place except a knowledge of the 
Truths of Nature, Avhich Christianity contradicts, and which 
must necessarily re])lace it when belief in that system is de- 
stroyed. If Christianity is a superstition, we do not want 
another superstition to supersede it. When one falsehood is 
exposed, we do not want another falsehood to take its place. The 
convalescent is not at all alarmed at the thou-iht that another 



APPENDIX. 461 

disease is not to take the place of the one from which he is re- 
covering. The victim of consumption, if he has been so fortu 
nate as to obtain relief from his disease in medical skill, does not 
say: 'Doctor, now what do you propose to give me in the place 
of consumption?' He does not imagine that the old disease 
should be replaced by rheumatism, gout or tic-douloureux. The 
removal of disease is followed by health, and health is the 
natural condition of the human system, in which it is able to 
receive and assimilate the nutriment required to give vigor and 
strength to the body. So the rejection of the fables, fictions and 
false dogmas of any system of superstition, in which a man has 
been educated, leaves him in a healthy mental condition — a con- 
dition favorable to the acceptance and appreciation of the teach- 
ings of science, art, history and philosophy, which constitute the 
proper food of the human mind, and are essential to its ex- 
pansion and development, as physical food is to the health of 
the body." 

If we accept the statement of the case assumed in this extract, 
the answer is clear and satisfactory. But let us analyze it. We 
object to the usurpation of the title "freethinker" by the 
infidel, and of " free though t " for his system. The disciples of 
Jesus are the freest thinkers in the world. " If the truth make 
you free, you shall be free indeed." They are just as free as the 
truth. They think just as free as the truth. The truth is free- 
thought. License is not liberty, nor is rejection of truth free- 
thought, but slavery to error. Then we object to the lawless 
disciples of error, who are in bo-ndage to its caprice, usurping 
tliese noble words. It is assumed that Christianity usurps the 
place of the truths of nature. The infidel can not name one 
truth of nature that Christianity has dethroned. The truths of 
morality do not usurp the place of the truths of physical science. 
It is assumed that it contradicts them. The infidel can not 
name one sentence of the New Testament that contradicts a 
single truth of nature. It is assumed that Christianity is super- 
stition. It is religion, the normal expression and gratification 
of the regnant element of our nature, and the remedy for super- 
stition. If religion be a perversion of our nature, what is its 
normal use ? Comte and Mill confess religion is the normal use 
of an element in our nature. Christianity is compared to a dis- 
ease, and extirpating it is like restoring a man to health. Now, 
there is a beauty in that comparison we want to consider. Evo- 
lutionists assure us man is the h.ighest product of the law of 
evolution, that controls all things. We are to study this law, 
and conform to its ongoings in time-succession. They assure us, 
also, that man began in superstition. In religion. Then, accord- 
ing to the illustration, this supreme law of the universe, this law 
of evolution, that we are to study and conform to, has given us, 
as its highest expression, a lot of consumptives, a lot of creatures 
universally diseased and abnormal. How did the infidel rise 
above this abnormal and diseased, consumptive condition? How 
did he learn that it was a disease, and that his cough was not 
normal? How did he cure it? If nature, if the law of evolu- 



462 THE PROBJ.EM OF PROBLEMS. 

tiou that we are to study, and to winch we are to conform, has 
given us, as its highest expression, a religious being, and religion, 
how did the infidel find out that, in this, its crowning effort, it 
is diseased and abnormal? What were his data, what did he 
study, what was his standard? If human nature be thus diseased 
and abnormal, how did he find it out? He must have a different 
nature from others. Then, if it has been so universally dis- 
eased, abnormal and deceived and deceiving, in what can we 
trust it? 

The teaching of nature is that man is a religious being, relig- 
ion is health, superstition is disease, and atheism is suicide. The 
atheist is like the mad-man, who would pluck out his eye to get 
rid of a stye on the lid. Christianity is a healthy use of man's 
nature. It cures disease, superstition, and saves from suicide, 
atheism. Then it is assumed that to remove religion, to remove 
the highest expression and declaration of his supreme law of 
evolution, to extirpate what has in all human experience been the 
regnant element of man's nature, is to restore it to health. It 
will then be able to receive food and assimilate it. Now we ask 
what truth can man receive after rejecting religion that he can 
not receive now? What influence will rejecting religion have 
on his receiving a single truth that the infidel offers? The offer is 
like that of a quack, who learning that a person has perverted food, 
especially that containing carbon and saccharine matter, should 
advise him to eliminate out of his food these elements, most es- 
sential of all to life and strength, that he may be able to receive and 
assimilate minor elements. Common sense would say that he should 
make a right use of these vitally essential elements, and not 
eliminate them. It would say that the elements left would be 
useless without the uses met by the elements it is proposed to 
eliminate. So in this case we advise to make right use of the 
regnant element in man's nature, religion, and it will aid in a 
right use of all the infidel prates so much about. It is absolutely 
necessary, as the ruling element, to a right use of what he con- 
tinually harps over. The rejection of religion is no more neces- 
sary to a healthy state of the mind to receive science, art, phi- 
losophy and any other truth, than the rejection of all carbon or 
saccharine matter, out of food, is necessary to a use of the other 
elements. On the contrary a retention and proper use of religion 
is as essential to the perfection of other truth, and to their proper 
use and action, as these two elements are to the use and perfec- 
tion of the action of other elements in food. It is assumed that 
religion usurps the place of the teachings of science, art and 
philosophy. Now, will he name one whose place it usurps? 
What single truth has he that the Christian has not as perfectly 
as he ? Nay, we will say that the Christian has it in a sense that 
he has not, and a higher sense. Take any truth in science, art, 
philosophy or history, and the Christian has with it the ideas of 
religion, God as author of truth, of all truth, of all beauty, all 
goodness. He has an infinitely higher, purer, loftier and more 
spiritual idea of these truths than the atheist can have. 

"But suppose we descend to particulars, to illustrate the fact 



APPENDIX. 463 

that for every false doctrine of Christianity we give the truth, 
fact or moral precept, of which the doctrine is a virtual denial. 
In place of the doctrine that all men are sinners through Adam's 
disobedience in eating an apple six thousand years ago, we teach 
that men are sinners or transgressors only so far as they disregard 
willfully the laws and conditions on which depend man's physical, 
intellectual and moral well-being." There are four misrepresen- 
tations in that extract. It misrepresents the Scriptural doctrine 
of sin. It represents Christianity as denying what he presents. 
It represents the Scriptural doctrine for sin as usurping the place 
of what he presents. It assumes what he presents to be a substi- 
tute for the Scriptural doctrine of sin. The Bible says man was 
created pure, and he must have been, if created by such a Being, 
as reason declares must have been his Creator. It declares he 
violated law. He disregarded the conditions of his physical, 
mental and moral nature. There was a first sin. This was fol- 
lowed by others. The consequences of this transgression affected 
man's posterity. Were hereditary. So teaches experience and com- 
mon sense. Then there is no error in the Bible statement. It 
teaches as a part of the truth his doctrine, and his doctrine is 
only a part of the truth. There is no conflict, and he has substi- 
tuted nothing for a particle of scriptural teaching. 

" In place of the doctrine that there is no other way to be saved 
from sin than through the blood and merits of Jesus Christ, w^e teach 
that man can be saved from sin only by avoiding a sinful course 
of life ; and that he will be far more likely to do this by trying 
to improve his own blood and merits than by depending on 
the blood and merits of any body else." Christianity teaches 
most clearly that men can be saved from the consequences of sin 
only by avoiding a sinful course of life. There is not an idea that 
he presents that is not presented by Christianity. Men have to 
improve their own blood and merits ; — so Christianity teaches. 
But the order of history and nature is the elevation of the fallen 
and degraded and lowly by the self-sacrifice of the good and exalted. 
The atonement of Jesus meets a want in our nature that nothing 
else can. It is suited to man's wants. It saves man from sin. 
Would preaching evolution do what Christianity has to save men 
from sin ? Christianity requires a man to be far more sinless than 
does materialism, and gives him the way demanded by his nature 
to accomplish it. But where did this writer get his idea of sin 
and righteousness and law and good ? Not in his evolution of 
matter and force, in which the strongest survives. That gives no 
freedom, no moral quality, no moral action. He gets his ideas 
that he tries to wield against Christianity from Christianity. He 
steals them from what he would destroy. His system of evolution 
of matter and force would never give them. " Instead of the I'ite 
of baptism, we would encourage the practice of bathing, having 
more faith in the physical hydropathic qualities of water than in 
the spiritual eflicacy of water, believing that cleanliness is of more 
importance than godliness." This statement is an insult to com- 
mon sense. It represents baptism as substituted by Christiaiiity 
for bathing. I can have all the bathing he can, all the hydro- 



464 THE PKOBLEM OF PR0BLI:MS. 

patliic effects of water. All institutions have ordinances. This 
writer submitted to many when he became a Mason. Christian- 
ity has the ordinance of baptisjn — a beautiful and expressive sym- 
])ol and rite of initiation. He can no more substitute batliing 
ibr baptism than he can combing one's head for an oath of inaug- 
uration. Again, while Christianity, above all systems teache.s 
purity and cleanliness, it is not true that cleanliness of person is 
of more importance than being- in spirit like the perfect God. 
Nor do these conliict. The truly good person will be a cleanly 
person. They are not antagonists, as this writer represents them, 
but kindred excellences. This misrepresentation is all there is of 
Ihis article. 

" For the doctrine of regeneration, or the new birth, we pro- 
pose to substitute general information respecting the laws of 
liealth and reproduction, so as to iiisure the generation of human 
beings under circumstances favorable to their physical and moral 
develoi)ment, thereby rendering regeneration unnecessary. In 
short, we would have human beings born right the first time, so 
that nobody would imagine that they need to be born again." 
Now that is gross misrepresentation. The Christian can study 
the laws of being, and use all the means and knowledge that the 
materialist can have, and have his children born as perfectly as 
the materialist. There is nothing in Christianity that stands in 
the way. It, by its pure teachings in regard to this relation and ])a- 
rental responsibility, secures such results. After our children are 
born, Christianity gives them a guide in accordance with their 
nature. It reg3nerates them when born wrong. Materialism can 
not do this. When he has done all he can by natural law, chil- 
dren will need Christianity and its regeneration. " For prayer 
we substitute self-reliance and trust in the universality and uni- 
formity of natural law. No manna comes by prayer ; so we de- 
pend upon our own exertions for food. The lightning is not 
turned from its course by clasped and uplifted hands ; so we look 
to the lightning-rod, rather than to the "Lord,'' for safety and 
protection in a tempest on land or at sea." This is gross misre- 
pro^entation again. Prayer is not in conflict with the uniformity 
of nature's laws. This whole materialistic misrepresentation rises 
no higher than food and material law and matter. Prayer is a 
part ot a perfect moral government of God over his rational crea- 
tures, in which the matter that this writer deifies is the servant 
of spirit that he seems ignorant of. The Christian labors for food, 
and uses the lightning-rod as much as he does. Christianity 
does not conflict with this. This entire sentence is so gross a 
misrepresentation as to be a falsehood. The Christian has every 
use and knowledge of nature that the materialist has, and* in the 
spiritual and religious world he has truth and blessings that the 
materialist ignores. He can make a higher and better use of na- 
ture than the materialist; for he can study and believe One who 
created and rules it. 

"Instead of holding up to lazy and selfish people a heaven of 
idleness and psalm-singing in another world, as (me would hold 
up a [n^ce of meat far a dog to jump at, we teach the duty of 



APPENDIX. 465 

personal effort on the part of all to realize onr dreams of a true 
Heaven in this world — the only world (Christians, Spiritists and 
Free Religionists to the contrary notwithstanding,) that anybody 
knows any thing abont." This is full of misrepresentations, Chris- 
tianity does not offer heaven to lazy or selfish people. It enjoins 
self-denial, self-sacrificing toil for others, as the way to reach 
heaven, because the way to fit one for it. The idea of such char- 
acters reaching heaven is repugnant to its entire spirit and teacli- 
ing. It does not teach thai eternity in Heaven will be spent in 
idleness and psalm-singing. I do not read it in the New Testa- 
ment. The idea that Christianity presents Heaven to such per- 
sons in such a way is an insult, and can only be excused on the 
ground of ignorance, which itself is inexcusable. The Christian 
can make a heaven of this world as well as the materialist, and, 
indeed, he alone can. Where did this writer get his ideas of mo- 
rality and goodness and self-sacrifice, tliat will make a heaven of 
this earth ? Certainly not in an evolution of irrational matter and 
force, by means of a brutal, selfish struggle for life, in which the 
strongest survives? What is the materialist doing to make a 
heaven of this world? Where are his missionaries? his Young- 
Men's Christian Associations, Sunday Schools, reformatory asso- 
ciations, and movements to make the world better ? Where are his 
martyr philanthropists ? Boasting that they have the numbers and 
wealth, they do not spend for humanity one dollar where the 
Christian, so caricatured in this article, spends tens of thousands. 
Making a heaven of this earth, as Christianity proposes to do, 
and in the only way it can be done, is fhe way to prepare fcr the 
future world ; and preparing for the future world is the way to 
make a heaven of this world, just as making a right use of youth 
is the way to pi'epare for manhood. How Avould it sound to sjiy 
to the child : Instead of holding up a noble manhood, as a piece 
of meat for a dog to jump at, belore your lazy inclinations, we 
will teach you to make all you can of youth ? Can a noble man- 
hood encourage idleness ? Is not preparing for it the right use 
of youth ? 

" Instead of attemj^ting to frighten children of various ages 
with the wicked vagary of a lake of fire and brimstone, in which 
God will punish his children eternally, for their mistakes ai]d 
fallacies, we endeavor to deter men from wrong-doing by show- 
ing that nature punishes every-where those who disobey her man- 
dates, that she judges the offender without the delay or circum- 
locution of court trials, and executes her sentence with simplic- 
ity, directness and the most rigid impartiality." The Christian 
knows and believes in the laws of nature, as established by God, 
as much as the materialist. He knows men do not receive in 
this world all the punishment due their crimes, in a majority of 
cases. He believes in a righteous ruler Avho rules in the moral 
world, and will, with infinite wisdom, render to each man ac- 
cording to his works. But let us take out that convenient per- 
sonification and read it as the materialist ought to present it, 
" We deter men from wrong-doing by showing that blind, irra- 
tional matter and force every-where punish those who disobey 



466 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

their mandates, that they judge the oflfender and execute theii 
sentence with simplicity, directness and impartiality." In such 
system can there be any mandates, judgment or sentence, or ex- 
ecution of sentence? There is a machine of blind matter and 
force. Man cheats it out of all the gratification he can and 
avoid being cruslied. If he makes a miscalculation the machine 
crushes him. Any talk of law, or judgment, or sentence, is 
absurd. All this is stolen from religion, and used in a pirati- 
cal attempt to destroy it, " Instead of exhorting men to pre- 
pare for death, we try to teach them how to live, believing that 
a faithful discharge of the duties of this life is the only sensi- 
ble preparation for death that can be made." Again, we have 
misrepresentation in j^resenting things as antagonistic that are 
not. Christianity teaches that a faithful discharge of the duties 
of this life is the preparation for death, and it tells how it is to be 
done, in discharge of our duties to God, our fellow-men, and 
ourselves. Materialism would not have the idea of duty in this 
life, except as it gets it from religion. Its brutal struggle for 
life with survival of strongest, never gave the idea this writer 
stole from religion. 

"In the place of the ordinary observance of the Sabbath, we 
favor spending the day in a natural pleasant manner — making 
it a day of rest and recreation, of pleasure and profit, allowing 
every one to follow the bent of his own inclination, provided 
he does not interfere with the rights of others." Would you 
have any day at all ? Christianity teaches man to spend the 
day in rest and recreation by cultivating his higlier nature and 
his spiritual well-being. Is there no recreation or profit except 
in mere material physical pleasure? Worship of a perfect be- 
ing, elevating praise and song, and listening to the most ex- 
alted themes of morality and religion, is a rational way of 
spending the day. All should be inclined to spend it in that 
way. Then Christianity gives us the rational method, and 
where it is observed in that way people have rational enjoy- 
ment in it, and there alone. "Instead of building churches 
and dedicating them to the Lord, we prefer to build school- 
houses and institutions of useful learning, and devote them to 
the advancement of man." There is inexpressible impudence 
in that statement. Does building churches interfere with build- 
ing school-houses and institutions of learning ? We can have 
churches in which the highest instruction is given, on the 
highest topics, moral and religious education, and have school- 
houses as well as the infidel. We have the most schools where 
we have the most churches. Churches have given rise to educa- 
tion and schools. They have followed the work of churches. 
Christianity and Christian benevolence founded the first schools 
and our colleges. How many colleges has infidelity founded ? 
How many mission schools in this or in heathen or other lands ? 
It has not a college to day except where it has stolen, by hypoc 
risy, in professing to believe what it did not, schools founded by 
Christian benevolence. Infidelity rules in many schools now, 
but it stole them, by hypocrisy, from Christian beneficence. 



APPENDIX. 467 

"For preaching of theologians, who are harping continually on 
the mysteries of another world, while they are unable to give us 
any information respecting matters of interest in this, we are 
trying to substitute the teachings of scientists, philosophers, 
poets, agriculturalists, mechanics, the teachings of men whose 
studies and pursuits qualify them for public educators. As a 
substitute for the fables of the Bible we offer the curious and 
instructive facts of modern science, astronomy, geology and 
chemistry. Such is our answer to. What will you give us in tlie 
place of Christianity?" Again, Ave have the same dishonesty in 
representing things as antagonists that are not, and that Christi- 
anity will have to be removed before this work can be done. 
Preachers know as much of this world as the infidel. We have 
six days for what he prates about, and one day for the exalted 
themes of religion and morality. We have as much of the in- 
struction of scientists, philosophers, etc., as the materialist has or 
can have, and religion teaches us how to make a right use of 
them, and gives to them a meaning that materialism can not. 
We have the most of these things where we have the most Chris- 
tianity. Theologians have been the best educators of the world, 
and its leaders in thought. We can have all the science the 
infidel can, and the Bible for man's religious nature and moral 
nature, and to give a use of these things that he can never have. 

Then we protest against assuming that religion is a perver- 
sion of man's nature; against assuming that it excludes a single 
idea — that this writer offers in its place; against the utter dis- 
honesty of representing it as an enemy of one of these truths; 
against claiming that it must be rejected to enable us to have 
and use these truths ; against the infidel impudently arrogating 
to himself the learning science and the schools and reforms and • 
philanthropy of the world ; against his offering to us, instead of 
Christianity, Avhat Christianity gave to us, and we have already 
in consequence of Christianity. Colonel Ethan Allen was taken 
]trisoner during the Revolutionary war, and taken, in chains, to 
h^ngland. As the ship was leaving the shore of America, a 
British oflSicer said to Allen, who lay manacled on deck, looking 
at his native land for, perhaps, the last time : "Allen, if you 
will quit the rebels, and do all you can for the king, he will 
give you all the land you can see off there in New Jersey." 
"That reminds me," said Allen, "of what I read in the good 
book. The devil offered the Saviour of the world all the world 
if he would worship him. The rascally old scoundrel did not 
own a foot of land or a thing in creation. They all belonged 
to the one to whom he offered them, and he had been trying 
to steal them for thousands of years, and every thing he had 
in his clutches he had stolen from the one to whom he now 
offered them." The offer of this infidel writer, to give us cer- 
tain things instead of Christianity, is precisely like it. And as 
the rightful owner said to his impudent, deceitful tempter, so 
we say to all such offers, " Get behind us, deceiver. It is writ- 
ten, ' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him onlj 
shalt thou serve.' " 



468 THE PliOBI^EM OF PEOBLEMS. 



Materialism and Christianity Contrasted. 

Man has to solve in his life these problems: I. Ethics or 
morals. II. Philosophy — mental science in all departments — 
physics or natural science in all departments. III. Politics or 
government. IV. Family or domestic institutions. V. Society 
or social and neig'hborhood relations. VI. Arts, fine arts, and 
the useful arts. His nature, surroundings and wants compel him 
to attempt a solution of these problems, and he has to make a 
practical essay at their solution in his life. Two systems or 
modes of thought have controlled men in their solutions of these 
problems, and the systems they have wrought out in solution 
of them — the religious or spiritual, and the irreligious or materi- 
alistic. All systems of religion have accounted for the origin of 
existences and phenomena, which is the basic idea of all else, and 
have based all these problems on the idea of divine power, au- 
thority and government. This idea has determined the solution 
of all these problems, and molded and controlled the constitution 
of the family, the society, the state, and also the morals, arts 
and science and philosophy of mankind, from his earliest history 
until the present hour. Materialism gives an entirely different 
answer to the basic idea, the origin of existences and phenomena, 
and, of course, when logically developed, which has never been 
done, because men have been influenced by religion even when 
repudiating it, it must have an entirely different idea of man's 
nature and relations, and this will of course cause an entirely 
different solution of the problems of morals, science, philosophy, 
mental and physical, and of the arts. It will have an entirely 
different system of morals, family, government and society. Tliis 
must be the case, from the nature of things. If the fountain be 
entirely different in nature, its waters must be also different from 
those of another fountain. Men's opinions concerning this mat- 
ter are not mere private speculations, that have no practical in- 
fluence. It is not like a speculation concerning whether the 
])lanets be inhabited, or the undulatory or emission theory of 
light or heat. They affect man's interest more than a belief or 
disbelief of the Copernican theory of the universe. They deter- 
mine all morality, moral and mental philosophy, all science, art 
and the family society and the state. If logically developed, 
these two systems would give as different results, as different 
solutions of these problems as can be conceived, as radically 
different and antagonistic as light and darkness. As we are 
asked now to cast religion to one side and accept materialism, 
let us contrast the two systems. Let us look before we leap, 
especially into the dark, over such a precipice. 

Christianity is the most perfect of the various systems of re- 
ligion now in existence. It is the one with which materialism 
wages its most relentless war. It is the religion that now dis- 
putes with materialism the mastery of the minds and hearts of 
our people. The civilized world has to choose between these two 
systems, and a fair contrast of the two conflicting systems will aid 
us in making the choice intellio-entlv. As fundamental to the 



APPENDIX. 469 

choice there are certain universal affirmations of reason that must 
be conceded. There is in the very nature of things such dis- 
tinctions as the true and the false, the good and the evil. There 
is more than imperfection, lack of development. There is posi- 
tive falsehood and evil. The good and the true alone are benefi- 
cial. The evil and the false are ever injurious. It is only by 
the rejection of the false and the evil, and the choice of the true 
and the good, that progress, development and happiness can be 
secured. There can be no neutrality, no idleness. There must 
be active choice of the true and practice of the good. A neglect 
to search for the true and the good, and choose and practice them, 
leaves one in the power of the false and the evil, and he also 
i'ails to fit himself for and enjoy development and happiness. 
If there be a God, man's duty is three-fold, to God, his fellow- 
man, and himself, and these duties are inseparable. Man is, to a 
certain extent at least, able to learn and discern the good and 
the true, and the evil and false, and able to choose between them. 
lie is, to a certain extent at least, free, responsible and account- 
able. He could have no morality if he were not. His belief 
affects his conduct, especially belief in regard to the true or 
false, good or evil. He is responsible for his belief, to some extent, 
at least. He must search for, have, choose and practice the true, 
beautiful and good. We are not safe when we are sincere. Nor 
when we think we are right. Nor when we do as well as we know 
how. We must be right. We mast know the true, beautiful and 
good, and be sincere in them. Practice them as well as we know 
liow, when we know the right hoio. Materialism can not be tried 
by the lives of a few select atheists, or materialists. A man may 
be better than his system, especially when he was educated and 
formed by another sy.stem, as was the case with atheists. We can 
only decide when men have been raised in atheism, entirely un- 
restrained or uninfluenced by religion, and have developed in 
their lives, unhindered, for generations, the tendency of their sys- 
tem. The two French revolutions can be regarded as indications, 
and only as indications. 

Materialism presents as that which is self-existent, independent, 
self-sustaining, and eternal, and the origin of all things, blind, ir- 
rational matter and force. Christianity presents Spirit, Mind, or 
Intelligence, Absolute Spirit, as the self-existent and absolute 
Being and the origin of all existences and phenomena. When 
logically developed these two systems must give diametrically 
dilferent results. 

Materialism denies all existence of mind or spirit, except as a 
phenomenon or function of matter, or a different manifestation 
of the one physical force pervading nature. It denies the dis- 
tinction between the knowing mind and known matter, between 
the body or the material organism, and the spirit or mind that 
animates and uses it, and knows that it is distinct from the body, 
in which it resides and uses. Christianity is based on this intui- 
tion of a difference between matter and mind and physical force. 
It is based on the distinction made in consciousness between the 
knowing mind and known matter. Between the body which it 



470 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

declares to be the tabernacle, lioiise and instrument, and the spirit, 
which resides in and uses it. It regards the spirit as conscious, 
intelligent, rational, willing, responsible, and the inner man, the 
real person. All its morality and ideas are based on tliis distinction 
made by universal consciousness and intuition. Materialism de- 
nies man's freedom, spontaneity, and free agency, and if consist- 
ent, his responsibility, and the reality of the distinctions 
between good and evil, truth and falsehood. It denies all basis 
for these ideas, and for the ideas, praise and blame, reward and 
punishment, and character, and if consistent denies their exist- 
ence and reality. There can be no basis for them in materialism ; 
and if it has these ideas and uses them, it steals them from 
religion, which it seeks to destroy. Christianity is based on these 
intuitions, these fundamental ideas. It regards man as a free, 
moral agent, as human consciousness has ever declared. It is 
based on the intuition of universal reason, that all things are 
either true or false, good or evil. Tnat all acts are good and 
worthy of praise and reward, or evil and worthy of censure and 
punishment, and that human conduct has character, that man 
has character, and is responsible and accountable. MateriaMsm 
makes what it falsely and deceitfully calls man's moral nature, 
stealing the idea and term from religion, inhere in man's material 
organism. It must either deny all moral ideas and all moral 
nature, or attribute them to blind, irrational matter and force, 
or make matter and force evolve what is not in them. Christi- 
anity makes the conscious, rational, willing spirit, the real man, 
and makes the spirit the source of all moral action and charac- 
ter, and mind the source of all things, and has an adequate and 
rational basis for character, morality and good and evil. Mate- 
rialism can not divide things into good and evil, true or false. 
It has no basis for such distinction. If all things were evolved, 
there is no distinction between them of a moral nature. It 
denies, if consistent, all such distinction, and removes all such 
distinction and basis for it. If it makes it, it steals the idea and 
the standard from religion. Christianity is based on such a dis- 
tinction of acts and things. It furnishes the only basis for such 
distinction, and the only standard for making the division. 

Materialism, having its origin in an evolution of all things out 
of blind, irrational matter and force, and by blind, irrational "mat- 
ter and force by a struggle for life in which the strongest survives, 
has, as its highest standard, selfish prudence, the standard of brutes. 
It makes no distinction between men and brutes except in mate- 
rial organization. Its only possible standard is selfish, brutal, and 
degrading. It destroys all idea of devotion to the good and true 
and beautiful, in opposition to selfish prudence, and for their own 
sake. In fact, it renders their existence impossible. It makes 
self-denial, self-sacrifice, and self-abnegation for the good and true 
a folly and crime, for they are a violation of its supreme law, sur- 
vival of strongest in a selfish struggle for life. Martyrdom, patriot- 
ism, philanthropy and devotion to the good of others are follies 
and crimes, for they are violations of the supreme law. If it uses 
these terms, or commands such acts, it steals them from religion, 



APPENDIX. 471 

for it has no basis for them, would never suggest them, and they 
are in violation of its supreme law. The standard of Christianity 
is the will of an Infinitely Wise, Holy, Good and Loving Father 
in Heaven. It tells us man was made in his mental and moral 
likeness It elevates man infinitely above the brutes, and gives 
him a standard infinitely above the standard of brutes. It elevates 
man into love and righteousness. Let us present the basic ideas 
of Christianity in detail, and contrast them with what materialism 
presents in their stead. Christianity is based on, as its idea of ideas, 
a perfect and complete revelation of an All-perfect Being, or a God, 
infinitely perfect in being, character and attributes. Admitting 
the anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament, w^hich were a neces- 
sity on account of man's condition, the character of God unfolded 
in the New Testament is perfect. This idea was gradually unfolded 
and developed to perfection — unfolded by object lesson and illus- 
trations, until a clear spiritual revelation w^as made, and a clear 
spiritual apprehension reached. Man needs as the one want of his 
spiritual nature, this Being as an object of awe, veneration, adoration, 
worship, devotion, and love. As a perfect model and ideal. As a 
dynamic lifting-power in heart, life and soul. Materialism has 
nothing to correspond to this. One writter says he looks in the 
mirror and sees the only God-he worships there. Its highest wor- 
ship is selfish worship of sinful human nature. Christianity reveals 
to us the ennobling truth that man was created in the mental and 
moral likeness of the Infinite Creator. It clothes man with in- 
expressible dignity and grandeur. Materialism says man sprang 
from a hairy arboreal ape, with powerful canine teeth, that was 
engaged in a brutal, ferocious struggle with the ferocious animals 
that surrounded it. From such a condition he emerged through 
brutal instinctive animalism into brutal idiotic savagery, and 
from that to his present condition. 

Christianity reveals the Universal Fatherhood of God, and the 
reasons on which the relation is based. He is the Creator of men, 
the maker of their bodies and the giver of their spirits. He pos- 
sesses in infinite peifection the mental and moral likeness in whose 
image man was created. He gave his Son, our Elder Brother, to 
redeem man. He is the common object of veneration, devotion, 
and love of all men. He is the author of the glorious scheme of 
the Gospel for the regeneration of all men. Materialism reveals 
the ancestry of man in the Simian and the Ascidian and the fiery 
cloud of chaos. It has not a suggestion of one of the exalted 
thoughts on which the paternity of Christianity is based. Chris- 
tianity reveals the universal brotherhood of man and bases it on 
exalted and ennoblir.g ideas. Men are the children of one common, 
infinitely perfectly Father in Heaven. They wear a common 
mental and moral likeness of this infinitely perfect Father in 
Heaven, in whose image they Avere created. They were redeemed 
by one common Elder Brother, Jesus, the only-begotten Son of 
God. They have one common system of religion, w^orship of their 
Father in Heaven. They have one common destiny, a glorious 
immortalify. Materialism denies this common brotherhood often, 
or finds it in a common origin in the Simian or Ascidian. It has 



472 THE PROBLEM OF PEOBLEMS. 

not one of the ennoblin<i; ideas on which the ennobling idea of 
Christianity is based. Christianity has the most exalted object 
that mind can conceive or heart cherish — the elevation of all men 
into universal love and righteousness, by the development and 
expansion of this mental and moral likeness of God, in which 
man was created by love and practice of righteous love and good- 
ness. Materialism utterly lacks this idea. It has no basis for it 
in its selfish struggle for life in which strongest survives. 

Christianity makes man a co-worker with God in this glorious 
work. Again we emphasize the inexpressible dignity and grand- 
eur with which Christianity clothes man, in giving to him so glo- 
rious a work, and so exalted a position as a co-worker with God in 
it. Materialism has no idea to correspond with this. Man is to 
study the ongoings of matter and force in time-succession, and, 
instead of working with an Infinite Being, he is to avoid being 
crushed by the remorseless monstrous machine. Christianity 
teaches man that he is to accomplish his own elevation into love 
and righteousness, by ^ving himself in loving self-sacrifice, toil 
and self-denial and devotion for the elevation of others. It teaches 
the martyr's zeal and devotion, the philanthropist's sacrifices, as 
the noblest of virtues, the height of wisdom, and gives the only 
motive that can cause them. Materialism teaches that man is to 
study the ongoings of nature in time-succession and accommodate 
himself to them, and, by selfish prudence in the struggle for life, 
get all the selfish gratification he can. It makes the acts of the 
martyr, patriot, and philanthropist a folly, a violation of the su- 
preme law of nature, a crime. Christianity teaches that all 
things were created by God our Father in Heaven, Infinite in 
Wisdom, Power and Love. Materialism teaches that all things 
are the result of the irrational happenings of blind, irrational 
matter and force. Christianity teaches that all things are gov- 
erned in wisdom and law by our Father in Heaven. Materialism 
teaches that all things are under the control of fatal, iron neces- 
sity, or the blind, fortuitous ongoings of blind, irrational matter 
and force. Its talk of law is utter absurdity. There can be no 
law or basis for law in such a system. Christianity teaches us 
that there is a rational personity apart from matter, or there is 
spirit. It teaches that we can look up to God, who is infinite 
Spirit, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, and to angels, and that we 
have spirits like them in nature. Materialism denies all this, and 
teaches that mind is but a function of matter, and Avhat we call 
spirit is but a modification of physical force. It turns our 
thoughts down to the force seen in animals, vegetables, and in 
physical nature. From this we came ; to this we return. Chris- 
tianity assures us there /is an eternal future life, in which we will 
spend an eternity in making endless approximations to the infin- 
ite perfections of the Divine Mind, in whose mental and moral 
likeness we were created. Materialism declares, "What went 
before man, and what is to follow after him, is to be regarded as 
two black impenetrable curtains, which hang down at the ex- 
tremes of human life, and which nothing has ever drawn to one 
side. A deep silence reigns behind these curtains. When once 



ATPENDIX. 473 

within, no one will ever answer those he left behind. All you 
can hear is a hollow echo to your own question, as if you had 
shouted into a yawning fathomless chasm." — HoJyoake, Christi- 
anity teaches men that they are free in volition to choose truth 
or falsehood, good or evil. It clothes man with the dignity of 
rational freedom, governed by intelligence and motive. Mate- 
rialism makes man a part of material nature, and denies and 
scouts all idea of freedom. — Man's actions are a part of the nec- 
essitated ongoings of nature. Christianity teaches that there is 
moral desert in action and character. Materialism has no basis 
for it, renders it utterly impossible and utterly denies it. Chris- 
tianity teaches that acts can be divided into voluntary and invol- 
unttiry, and the former into good and evil ; and that all things 
can be divided into true or false, good or evil ; and that there is 
character to all intelligence, and that it can be divided into 
righteous and good, or sinful and wicked. Materialism makes all 
acts alike necessary, and renders impossible all distinctions be- 
tween good and evil ; for ail things and acts are alike evolved. 
It denies and renders impossible all distinction in things, acts or 
character. Christianity teaches that all men are responsible for 
what they do. They are accountable to God, as Lawgiver, Ru- 
ler and Judge. It teaches absolute cognizance of every thought, 
word and deed. All this is known to Infinite Wisdom and Just- 
ice. Materialism teaches that men are to learn to accommodate 
themselves to the ongoings of blind, irrational matter and force. 
There is no responsibility, no accountability, to Intelligence, — 
there is no Lawgiver, Ruler or Judge. Christianity teaches retri- 
bution by Infinite, Wisdom, Justice and Power, as Executive, 
Perfect rewards and punishments, in this life and in the eternal 
life. It has perfect and absolute sanction in this. It has perfect 
and absolute authority in being the will of an infinitely Wise, 
Holy, Just and Powerful Being. Materialism has no retribution. 
If you do n't keep step with the machine, it remorselessly crushes 
you, but there is neither reward nor punishment. No righteous 
rewarder, no righteous avenger. Get all the selfish gratification 
that you can ; cheat blind nature out of it, and you have obeyed the 
supreme order of things — a selfish struggle for self, in which the 
strongest succeeds. 

Christianity teaches that God, as our Father in Heaven, exer- 
cises a providential care over his creatures and works ; and that he 
exercises a paternal providence over his rational creatures, made 
in his own image that he does not over mere material nature. 
Strauss, the apostle of the new faith of materialism that is to take 
the place of Christianity, says: " In the enormous machine of the 
universe, amid the incessant hiss and whirl of its jagged iron 
wheels, and the deafening crash of its ponderous stamps and 
hammers ; in the midst of this whole terrific commotion, man, a 
helpless defenseless creature, finds himself placed, not secure for a 
moment that on an imprudent motion, a wheel may not seize and' 
rend him, or a hammer crush him to powder. This sense of 
abandonment is at first something awful !" Christianity teaches 
that, as his children, we can and should pray to our Father in 
40 



474 THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

Heaven, and that He, as our Father in Heaven, will hear and 
answer our petitions, wisely and in true love, as a wise parent 
should. Materialism, through Holyoake, its leading English 
apostle, declares : " Science has shown that Ave are under the 
domhiion of general laws, inexorable laws of unyielding necessity, 
evolved by irrational matter and force. There is no special prov- 
idence ; prayers are useless ; propitiation is vain. Whether there 
be a Deity, or Nature be Deity, it is still the God of the iron 
foot, tluit passes on without heeding, without feeling, without 
resting. Nature acts with fearful uniformity — stern as fate, abso- 
lute as tyranny, relentless as destiny, merciless as death ; — too 
vast to praise, too inexplicable to worship, too inexoraitle to pro- 
pitiate, it has no ear for prayer, no heart for sympathy or pity, no 
arm to save ! " 

Christianity reveals sin as a fact and evil, as a reality in the 
lives, conduct, and experience of men. It gives a clear revelation 
and clear teaching concerning the nature of sin, and a perfect 
standard for testing and deciding what is sinful. It consists in 
rebellion against the Snpreme Authority and just law of God. In 
selfishness and love of self, and devoting life to self. Love of 
evil and impurity. Hatred of holiness and justice. Materialism 
denies the existence of sin and evil, for it makes all things and 
acts alike, the evolutions of blind, irrational matter and force. 
All are on an equality, and are alike without character or moral 
quality, for there can be no standard and no difference in nature. 
Christianity teaches that God, as our Father in Heaven, has re- 
vealed Himself, His character and will, as a means of saving us 
from sin, as a means of giving us a perfect religion, and a per- 
jfect rule of life. Materialism tells us we are left" to the gropings 
of our erring, doubting, sinful natures, in the gloom of irrational 
matter and force. Christianity teaches that God has revealed 
His will and scheme of redemption by inspiration of chosen men, 
thus making man a co-worker with Him, and giving to revelation 
a human element, suiting it to man's nature. Materialism scouts 
all such idea, and leaves man to get his inspiration from studying 
the ongoings of blind matter and force. Christianity teaches 
that God manifested Himself in miracles, giving evidence of His 
presence, and credentials of revelation, by making a higher use 
and display of nature and nature's laws than man could make, 
thus cultivating man's religious nature, and awe and veneration. 
Materialism makes a fetich of matter and force, and their ongo- 
ings too sacred to be modified by intelligence, and for the highest 
wants of intelligences, even if a higher and more exalted use of na- 
ture be made by superior intelligences for the highest wants of man. 

Christianity teaches that as our Father in Heaven, God has 
given to man warning of future events; cheered him with promi- 
ses of future blessings, and sustains and solaces him in trial and 
danger with prophecy. Materialism leaves him to grope his Avay 
in doubt and perturbation, amid the ongoings of blind, irrational 
matter and force. Christianity takes the universal custom and 
idea of sacrifice, and does away with all sacrifice of life and shed- 
ding of blood, by a perfect sacrifice, the Son of God. It requires 



APPENDIX. 475 

of men* that they present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and 
acceptable to God, and their spirits as sacrifices in praise and 
worship and living righteous lives, and all their labor in devo- 
tion to righteousness, love and goodness. Materialism declares 
our nature a delusion and a cheat in this idea of sacrifice, mocks 
this catholic idea of humanity, and knows nothing of the 
sacrifice of body, life and spirit required by Christianity. Ithns 
no basis for it in its materialistic, sensual, selfish system. Chris- 
tianity gives to us a perfect expiation and atonement, in the Son 
of God. In this it accords with the law of nature and experience, 
that elevation and salvation have come through the sacrifice of 
the good and exalted. It exhibits God's abhorrence of sin, his re- 
gard for his law, the enormity of sin, and it appeals to the hu- 
man heart as nothing else can, or has. There is a power over the 
human heart in the cross of Christ, and his sufferings for the sins 
of his enemies, that nothing else ever had. Materialism ridicules 
and bitterly assails this idea, exactly suited to man's needs, and 
so dear to the human heart. Christianity presents to us a Medi- 
ator, the Son of God, thus meeting the great want of the human 
heart, and giving man confidence to approach God for pardon, 
and to secure his favor and love, and confidence to begin a life of 
reformation and righteousness. Materialism also ridicules this 
idea, and declares that man — erring, sinful man — is his own 
Christ and his own Saviour. Christianity presents to us, Jesus 
the captain of our salvation, as a leader in religion and in life, 
and reformation of the individual and the race. It thus meets 
a want of the human heart. All revolutions and great movements 
have had and must have such leader. Materialism leaves this 
want of the heart unsatisfied. It can not rally or unite the 
lieart of humanity in such a reformatory movement. Christi- 
anity gives to us a personal embodiment of doctrine and life, a 
perfect example in Jesus of Nazareth. This is a want of humanity, 
for man learns more by example than precept. Truth must be 
incarnated in a life, especially moral truth, to have a saving 
power. Materialism does not meet this want of mind and heart. 
Christianity presents a perfect object of faith, gratitude, devotion 
and love, in Jesus of Nazareth. This is tl^e means of regenera- 
tion and salvation of men. It is by faith in, love and gratitude 
for, and devotion to, an exalted person, an embodiment of life and 
truth, and a leader in reformation, that men are saved and re- 
formed. It has been so in individual life and in revolutions 
and reformations. Materialism utterly lacks all this. Its selfish 
system, that places man at the head of an evolution of matter 
and force, utterly rejects all such idea. It can not reach and 
elevate human heart and life by such faith, devotion and love. 
Christianity makes eternal, absolute and perfect this atonement, 
this sacrifice, this Mediator, this Leader, this embodiment of life 
and doctrine, this object of faith, devotion and love, by incarna- 
tion, or making Him (God) manifest in the flesh, Jesus of Naza- 
reth, who stands between God and man with one hand reached 
down to humanity, struggling in sin, doubt and fear, giving it 
confidence by the human side of his nature to approach God foi 



476 TFTE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

pardon, and to begin a life of reformation and right eousnesr^ and 
with the other hand laid on the throne of the Eternal, giving 
man confidence to rely on him as a perfect Saviour, because 
divine. Materialism utterly rejects and scouts this idea that is 
needed by humanity as its one want, and is a power in human 
life in salvation that is omnipotent and eternal. 

Christianity offers to men redemption from evil, salvation from 
the love of sin, the practice of sin, the guilt of sin, the punish- 
ment of sin. Materialism denies the reality of sin, in opposition 
to the feeling of every heart, and offers no redemption. Study 
nature and keep step with the machine. Christianity requires an 
entire reformation of nature, thought and conduct, heart and 
life, so radical as to be expressed only by regeneration, being born 
again. Materialism scouts and ridicules this idea, and has no 
means or basis for reformation. It would never produce it. 
Christianity teaches that if men repent from the heart, and for- 
sake sin, God, as their Father in heaven, will forgive them, and aid 
them in a life of reformation and righteousness. Materialism de- 
nies all forgiveness, and has no basis or hope for it. Christianity 
furnishes to men a perfect system of universal and eternal truth 
to be believed, a perfect system of adoration and worship of a per- 
fect Being, and a perfect rule of life, giving perfect teaching con- 
cerning man's duty to God, his fellow-man, and himself. Mater- 
ialism has nothing of this sort. Man is to study physical nature, 
which would not give him a moral idea or truth, or rule for con- 
duct, except selfish prudence. Ciiristianity gives to man the 
church, perfect in its organization and officers, with perfect ordi- 
nances and services, preaching and teaching, perfect truth in 
morals and religion, and exalted and eternal themes of thought, 
cultivation and elevation, prayer, praise, benevolence and holiness 
of life. Christianity requires, at man's hands, a perfect consecra- 
tion of life. Love to God with his whole being, and his neighbor 
as himself, a life molded and regulated by this rule of life, which 
is perfect in teaching and model. Materialism lacks all this. 
Christianity presents, as the end of labor and work, the elevation 
of the race into love and righteousness, and men are co-workers with 
God in this, giving themselves, in loving self-sacrifice, for this 
end. Materialism, with its selfish, sensual origin and supreme 
law, has not a suggestion of this. It condemns it and venders it a 
fallacy, a crime, for it is a violation of its supreme law. 

Christianity gives us faith, belief of, and trust, reliance and con- 
fidence in an exalted being, as the animating principle of life; 
hope of a glorious immortality as the animal;ing aspiration of 
life ; supreme love to God, and love to our fellow-men, as the ani- 
mating motive of our life; and supreme felicity as the end and 
reward of being. Materialism has no basis for one of these, and 
utterly rejects them. Christianity accords Avith the principle of 
our nature that demands that all exalted and ennobling relations 
be based on faith, and be matters of faith. Love of husband 
and wife, parent and child, friendship, and all ennobling relations 
are mere matters of faith. Materialism, being a system of sense, 
and discarding fiiith, paralyzes and palsies the ennobling feelings 



APPENDIX. 477 

and relations of heart and life. Christianity saves men through 
humility, self-sacrifice, love, devotion and gratitude, which is the 
only way of saving men. Materialism, placing man at the head 
of all existence, and with its law of selfish prudence, is utterly 
repugnant to this, the only way of* elevating and saving men. 
Then Christianity takes the catholic ideas of man's mental, 
moral and religious nature, strips them of all error, gathers all 
in one system, elevates and expands them into universal truths, 
universal and eternally applicable principles, and is suited to 
man's needs and wants. What it has done for man, which 
materialism now tries to steal, proves it to be the system for 
humanity, the perfect rule of faith, life and conduct. Material- 
ism is utterly lacking of all these elements and destructive of 
this life-giving, soul-saving power. 

Conclusion. 

We will part from the reader, who has patiently traveled with 
us, so many times, the long path of evolution so obscure in 
many places, and who has, with us, crossed the chasm which 
creative intelligence alone could bridge for us, with a summary 
of conclusions reached. The issues examined have been the 
Nebular Hypothesis, and especially the atheistic use now 
attempted to be made of it; the Evolution Hypothesis, giving 
special attention to the Darwinian Hypothesis, as the leading- 
feature in the Evolution Hypothesis; and the Hypotheses of 
Geology that are used to contradict the teachings of the Scrip- 
tures, such as the antiquity of man, the order of creation, the 
length of the periods of creation; and also the Atheistic Hy- 
pothesis of Historic Development. The author has no wish to 
stop the investigation of the data on w^hich these hypotheses 
are built by their advocates. On the contrary, he would en- 
courage it all he can. He would not stop it, if he believed it 
would overturn all religion and revelation, for in such a case 
it would demonstrate their falsity, and he would, above all 
things, desire to know it, if such be the case, and to reject 
them. If materialism and atheism be true, let us find it out, 
and know it, and the sooner the better. What he objects to is 
the use that is attempted to be made of these hypotheses. They 
are but inferences, guesses, made from a partial investigation 
of but a small portion of the entire phenomena, that must be 
thoroughly and all investigated before they can be established. 
Their advocates demand that we accept them as demonstrated, 
established, scientific truths. Also, that we base our science, and, 
as a necessary result, our morals, society, life and thought on 
them, as basic, fundamental truth. Not only this, but they de- 
mand that we unship the intuitions of all humanity, from its 
infancy until now, cast to one side the faith, the thought, and 
the experiences of all generations of men, for these hypothesis, 
these guesses. It is against this that w^e protest. We have 
urged objections to the hypothesis. We showed that they were 
not proved ; that we have not sufficient data for them, nor is 



478 TriR PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS. 

the data sufficiently examined. We have exposed the radical 
defects of their advocates, in not investigating the entire data, 
and the very data that should be examined. Also, in not using 
the methods and standards that are the very ones to be used. 
We have showed Avherein they have assumed as known what 
was unknown, and from the nature of the case could not be 
known. We have showed where they involved the absurd, con- 
tradictory and false. We have done this for two reasons. 
First, to show that the advocates of these hypotheses have no 
right to make the infinite demand on us they are making. 
Second, to show to them what must be done, what must be re- 
moved out of the way, and what must be established before we 
can comply with their demand. We remand the theories to 
them, demanding that they do this work before they make such 
an illimitable demand on our belief and conduct. 

We want to leave with the reader this thought : That these 
hypotheses have not one particle of scientific proof, and are not 
science. They are guesses, inferences from partial data but im- 
perfectly examined. They can not be made a part of mere physi- 
cal science. When physical science can investigate such phenom- 
ena as are claimed in these hpyotheses actually transpiring, then 
they became a part of physical science. When physical science 
can point to such phenomena now actually transpiring, it can 
demonstrate these theories by methods of physical science. But 
since physical science has not done that, and can not, these hypo- 
theses can never become merely a question of physical science. 
Physical science furnishes the phenomena and their characteris- 
tics. Rational thought or metaphysics, by its inductions, must 
settle the truth or falsity of these hypotheses concerning the 
origin and cause of the phenomena. It is purely a metaphysical 
question. Scientists sneer at metaphysics, but what are their hy- 
potheses but metaphysics, and the weakest class of metaphysics, 
mere inferences from the data, mere guesses. _^The utmost that 
can ever be done is to change them into clear rational inductions. 
When that is done all should accept them. But never until that 
is done. Then these hypotheses are mere metaphysics. Their 
name hypothesis, inference, guess, declares that, and they are the 
weakest of metaphysics. Then let the scientist cease to use them, 
as a part of physical science, for they are not, and never can be. 
Let him changethem from mere guesses to clear inductions, before 
demand that we accept them, much less base all science, morality, 
conduct, and life on them. 

The testimony for these hypotheses is what is called circumstan- 
tial evidence. It is not, and never can be, positive evidence, until 
we are pointed to such occurrences transpiring in such a manner 
as is claimed in the hypothesis. The rules for testing circumstan- 
tial evidence are these : Let the reader note them carefully, 
and refuse to accept the hypotheses, or at least to base important 
action on them until they have fully met these tests, severely and 
thoroughly applied. I. There must be many facts pointing in the 
direction of the theory, and they must point very strongly in the 
direction of the theory before any one is warranted in advancing 



APPENDIX. 479 

or advocating the theory, much less demanding that people act on 
it, or base important action or interests on it. Here all these hy- 
potheses are fatally defective. But a small portion of the facts 
are known, and they do not point strongly in the direction of the 
theory. The facts that it is especially necessary to know to sustaiii 
the theory are unknown, and the author believes they never can 
be known. II. To change the theory into a demonstrated truth, 
all the facts must be known. So long as any are unknown, it can 
not be more than a theory, for the unknoAvn facts might utterly 
disprove the theory. This is exactly the case with these hypo- 
theses. But a small portion of the facts are unknown. Those that 
must be known to establish the theory are unknown, and the 
author believes they ever will be. Then these unknown facts 
might disprove the theories, and the author believes they would 
totally contradict them. III. There must not be facts that raise 
insuperable objections, or strong presumptions against the theories, 
for the theories are mere presumptions themselves. There are 
undeniable facts that raise strong presumptions against these the- 
ories — that raise insuperable objections — indeed that flatly con- 
tradict them. IV. There must not be in the theories when logic- 
ally stated, nor in logical deduction from them, the absurd, con- 
tradictory, and false. There is in all these theories, when logically 
stated, and also in logical deductions from them, the absurd, the 
contradictory, and the false. V. The theories must not be based 
on supposition, either wholly or in part, for the supposition may 
not be true. These theories are all of them based partly on sup- 
position, and indeed almost wholly so. Their most essential and 
important features are based on suppositions that may be false^ 
and we have strong reasons to regard as false. VI. There must 
be no other theory that will explain the fact. We must be neces- 
sarily shut up to that theory, and that alone, for if there are other 
explanations of the facts the theory is worthless, for the other ex- 
planation may be true. Here these theories are fatally defective. 
There are other theories that will explain the facts, and far better 
than they. Indeed the other theory is the one established by 
clear inductive reasoning, and the only one reason can accept. 

VII. The theories must not be expanded in enunciation be- 
yond what can be clearly deduced from the facts. Here is the 
fatal defect of these theories. They bear no more proportion to 
the facts on which they are based than the boundless and un- 
numbered assumptions of modern spiritism do to the facts in 
it. VIII. The theory must not be expanded in application beyond 
what it legitimately covers. Here is a radical defect in these 
theories. Their expansion in application is like trying to cover 
the heavens with the outspread hand. IX. Finally, so long as it 
is merely circumstantial evidence, we are not warranted in basing 
vital action or consequences on it, unless we are compelled to 
act, and it is the only theory, or the strongest one ; but until 
compelled to act, we should wait for further proof, and be passive 
in regard to the theory while awaiting such proof. As already 
said, here is the arrogance of the advocates of these theories. 
They not only advocate them, but they ask us to risk vital inter- 



480 THE PKOBLEM OF PEOBLJ3MS. 

ests, indeed, all interests on them. They do this when not onl> 
are we not compelled to act, or when they are the only theory, 
but when there are other theories, and one that is far stronger, 
and is indeed the only one reason will accept, and the one that 
has clear, inductive proof, and is the one on which man has ever 
acted. Let the reader bear these tests in mind, and apply them 
until these theorists — either show that we are shut up to this 
theory, and must act on it, or change it from a theory to a de- 
monstrated truth, established by clear induction. 

Finally, these theorists make a most radical mistake when they 
assume that even if their theories were true, concerning the 
methods of cosmical evolution in tlie nebular hypotheses of sys- 
tems and worlds, and the first evolution of our planet, and the 
substances and laws by which they are controlled, and their pro- 
cesses ; and that life was produced, and all species and varieties, 
as they claim in physiological evolution, and that their hypothe- 
ses in regard to the order of production of life, and the period 
taken and the age of man, and the theory of historical develop- 
ment of man ; that it necessarily proves that intelligence had 
nothing to do with the origin and course of evolution, and the 
present order of things. It would increase rather than decrease 
the evidence of intelligence, the necessity for intelligence, and 
our conceptions of the degree of intelligence displayed. This is 
a radical error. Let the scientist go on with his investigations, 
and when he has changed every hypothesis into scientific truth, 
established by clearest induction, it will not. affect one parti- 
cle the evidence for the existence and action of Absolute, Intelli- 
gent Cause, nor the fundamental ideas of the Scriptures. Men 
may have to change their notions of God and his modes of action 
and their interpretations of the Scriptures. It may be that dog- 
mas that are now regarded as fundamental Scriptural truths may 
be abandoned, and be regarded as accommodations to human error, 
weakness and methods of thought and ideas in early ages, or even 
as human errors incorporated into the Scriptures with the truth 
they contain, but still theism and its catholic and universal 
ideas and their perfect development in Christianity will stand 
forever. But the author fears no such results as are indicated 
in this paragraph, as his previous utterances prove. 

Since nature and revelation have the same author, when 
properly interpreted, they will be accordant, and man will ever 
say as he studies nature, "The heavens declare the glory of God, 
and the firmament showeth his handiwork. The invisible attrib- 
utes of God are clearly seen from the beginning of the universe, 
even his eternal power and divinity being manifested by his 
creations." As he studies intelligently the Scriptures he will 
say with the apostle, " The Sacred Writings are able to make 
niiin wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. AH 
writing given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, 
for correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness; and 
by them the man of God is made perfect and thoroughly fur 
nished unto all good works.'H^oo m 



